Trust Me
by Airplane
Summary: When Rapunzel falls in love with a passing bandit, she must venture into the outside world for the first time to find him. Dark.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Sometimes you need to pause for a moment and take stock of your situation. This is one of those times – one of those times when Flynn needs to take a step back and use his brain so that he doesn't lose his temper on the girl holding him hostage.

First, his head hurts. A lot. It's shocking that the third hit to the head with her cast iron skillet didn't kill him, but his vision is still a bit jumpy. He recites the ABCs to himself and recalls what his name is and what he had for lunch yesterday just to prove to himself that he does not have brain damage.

Secondly, he is tied to a chair. It's a rather comfortable chair, or it would be if he was a foot shorter and not bound to it. It also looks a bit battered, a bit loved, telling him that this is someone's home rather than someone's abandoned secret hideout.

Who could have guessed that?

Then there's the fact that he is bound to the chair by yards and yards and yards of live human hair. He finds this thoroughly disgusting. It's thick and tight around his wrists, and chest, and shins, but it's only hair, right? He should be able to cut it fairly easily, and it's so silky that if he can find the knot he might be able to slip the whole mass right off. Now that he's looking, he can tell that the main knot is under his left wrist and he subtly begins to jimmy his hand to loosen it without her noticing.

He can tell that his captor is far more afraid of him than he is of her. She's thin and would probably weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet (excluding the hair.) She doesn't seem to have any backup except a lizard, who's more bizarre and annoying than threatening, and a frying pan that he's decided is rather scary. He figures that once he's loose he can overpower her easily and wrestle the damned thing away (the frying pan, not the lizard.)

Finally, there's the fact that now he actually has no idea where his satchel and its precious cargo are hidden. He really should have kept his mouth shut instead of pointing out that her skills of concealment are juvenile at best. But he just couldn't help himself. When a moment for snarkiness arises, it's a shame to let it pass him by. He searches the tower with a quick scan of his eyes, guessing that it's in a cupboard or possibly hidden behind the drapes, but he's not entirely convinced of ether of these places.

She pulls a thick red curtain back to show him a mural she's painted of what look like fireflies. Unfortunately his satchel isn't hidden back there.

He rocks his hand some more as he answers one of her questions, and the hair gives a bit. Oh yeah. This will be all too easy.

"You mean the floating lantern thing they do for the princess?"

She gasps as if this is the best thing ever. Weird. While she's distracted the knot slips loose and he freezes for a moment to see if she noticed. Nope. Excellent. He starts moving his other wrist, transferring some of the slack over to his right hand. In just a second he'll be free. He'll be free, but he still won't know where the crown is.

Hmmmm…

"Hey, Blondie." Her head snaps back around to him, and she frowns as if she just remembered he was there. A sultry grin eases onto his face. "You want to see the lights?" She blinks at him and his smirk grows. "Come here."

She looks unsure, but shuffles a bit closer, her fingers adjusting against the handle of her frying pan.

"That's right, gorgeous. I don't bite."

That gives her pause. Maybe it was the pet name. Maybe she was considering for the first time that he might bite… Maybe she wanted him to bite her?

She slips a step closer.

"You'll show me the lights?"

"_Oh yeah_."

Another step.

Her eyes rake over him, and he lifts an eyebrow at her.

"I've never had a man in my tower before."

"Really? Well, this is your lucky day."

She bites her lip.

Another step forward.

"I've decided to trust you."

"Good call," he purrs. It isn't actually, but sometimes honesty isn't the best policy.

She takes the last step forward and bends down, lowering her face close to his, searching his eyes for dishonesty. Up close he can see the freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. It's actually kind of cute.

Seizing his chance, he darts forward and seals his lips over hers, pouring enough magnetism, enough heat and desire into the kiss to keep her from immediately jerking away and whacking him upside the head. She squeaks, but he stays with her, pushing forward, keeping contact.

And she pauses. Not completely defensive, and not relaxed. But close. She teeters on the edge of giving in. He can tell her eyes are open, that she's staring at him, and he moves into an easily caresses against lips. He's warm and nice and inviting and with every movement of his lips he seems to whisper, to hypnotize. _Trust me. Trust me_.

She takes a deep, shaking breath through her nose, pulling in his scent of dust and sweat and _outside_.

And then she melts. Her eyes and her weapon lowers and she follows his lead, pursing her lips and relaxing her shoulders.

She melts for him and he's safe. He's got her where he wants her, and he knows that this victory is already his.

He guides her mouth open, and builds the heat in her chest with a few languid strokes of his tongue. Her hands find the back of his neck to pull him closer, and he takes the opportunity to slip his hands free and wrap them about her waist, guiding her down to his lap, down to him and all the pleasures and sensations of the outside world. She hisses in surprise, but he's already locking his tongue over the pulse in her neck, _trust me_, and dragging broad, warm hands over slender sides, _trust me. _ And she trembles in his arms, dropping her weapon to the floor with an echoing clang.

One hand comes up to cup her breast, and she arches against him, needing him to touch her more, needing him to- oh! Just like that. She clutches at him, burying her face against his neck, never having felt any this before, never even having imagined that her veins could light on fire and her skin could simmer and prickle and that she could ever feel such a pull, such a need for another human being.

There's a science to seduction. Careful planning and control of a thousand little details, a million little sensations that all add up to a bliss that dissolves a girl from the inside out. The way she holds him, the passion of her warm breath, the sway of her hips all make him hunger, make him long for her.

But he has other plans.

Skilled fingers trail over her hip, across her thigh, down her leg. He nips at her skin, breaking one promise, as he slips under them hem of her dress. _Trust me._ He works his way slowly back tracing the trail he drew down her leg, this time against bare flesh, fabric bunching around his wrist, her hips shifting to urge him further, closer towards where she needs him to be.

She shudders as he pulls a calloused thumb over that last inch of her inner thigh, and she released a deep moan as he at last makes contact, rubbing her in languid strokes that grow firmer, swifter, more pressing as she grows warmer, as her nails bite into his arms and the tension in her muscles builds to a breaking point.

She cries out, one long, clear note of relief and pleasure and heartbreak, and he keeps stroking her, making it last, making her fly.

He breathes into her ear, his voice husky. "Do you see the lights?"

"Yes. Oh!"

"Are they lovely?"

"Yes!"

"And where's my satchel?"

"Under the… ah! Under the stairs."

She grabs his face in both hands and plants a deep, feverent kiss against him, full of gratitude and tongue as his movements wind down and her body slumps against him. He holds her there and listens to her breathe. He feels the excitement in her limbs drain away around him. She falls asleep in his arms, her little, button nose pressed against his neck.

He sighs to gather his wits again, and runs a hand through his hair, before he kicks his legs free of his binds. He lifts her up gingerly, turns, and deposits her limp form back in the chair, where she curls into a snuggly ball and sighs.

He finds the crown easily and takes the thin circlet in his hands, smiling down at it like an old friend. Somehow it reminds him of the girl. He pushes the thought aside as he stuffs the crown back in his bag and wipes his fingers on his pants.

"Sweet dreams, Blondie," he whispers as he leaves the tower the same way he came.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Rapunzel is too comfortable to move even though she's curled awkwardly, the chair back stiff against her spine, its arm biting into her legs. She also has a bit of a head ache. And she's cold.

Actually, she shouldn't feel comfortable at all, but there's this warmth in her stomach that keeps her limbs loose and relaxed and contented. She doesn't want to move, but then she remembers that something is missing and her eyes slip open.

"Flynn?"

There's no answer besides a tickle of wind through the open window. Unfolding herself and hopping to her unsteady feet, she looks about the room for some sign that he is still there. But the tower looks about the same as always, except that the chair now stands in the middle of the room with her hair wrapped around it instead of the corner, and one of the steps in the stairs has been removed and the slab tossed carelessly on the floor.

She checks the kitchen, because maybe he was hungry. Then she races up the stairs, skipping the missing step and its empty hiding spot, to check her room because maybe he was tired and wanted to sleep in a bed rather than a chair. Then she checks her mother's room, because maybe he didn't know which room was hers and Mother's is much nicer. Then she checks the closet again because… well, she doesn't really have a reason for that.

"Flynn?" A level of uncertainty creeps into her voice as her words turn stale and die in the air. They make the tower feel small, feel stifling.

He's gone. There's no trace that he'd ever even been there – no satchel or jewels or fliers or dirt from his boots. All that's left is some misplaced furniture and a flutter in her belly. Had he even been real? Had she completely imagined him? Was she going crazy?

One time, Rapunzel made a dress completely out of woven strips of paper. It was blue and it was beautiful and it fit her so much better than her other dresses. It made a delightful crinkling noise when she walked, and she worked hard to work the paper so it wasn't too stiff or unwieldy.

Her mother took one look at it and said, "Oh, dear, Rapunzel. I think you're going crazy."

She hadn't known what that meant (except that Mother didn't like her dress) and after a great deal of pleading, her mother vaguely conveyed that it meant that something was wrong with her mind. She said that crazy people talked to themselves, and did unexplainable things, and then turned violent against the people they loved.

They saw things that weren't there.

"Oh no."

Rapunzel sinks to the floor in front of the closet, pulling her knees to her chest and breathing heavily as her eyes dart manically back and forth across the tile without actually seeing the design. She hugs herself tight and rocks back and forth in an attempt to find some sort of comfort.

She has gone crazy and something is wrong with her. She's been fighting the war against talking to herself for years, and she lost nearly every battle until she took up talking to the furniture and then took up talking to Pascal.

Now she's seeing people, and not just the way she imagined she saw people when she played as a child, but now she sees people and can't distinguish fantasy them from reality. That is truly frightening, and she holds herself tighter to fight back the paranoia, wondering what other parts of her surroundings aren't really there.

Now it is only a matter of time before she starts screaming nonsense at the air and attacking her mother with the potato peeler.

Of course Flynn wasn't real! How could she delude herself like that? She just imagined that a handsome man without fangs stumbled into her tower, and she had been able to overpower him. None of that could have happened. Thinking that it could is ridiculous.

She only imagined that he made her feel those amazing things – those amazing, wonderful things that did not exist. How could they exist? How could he exist?

"Stupid, stupid, stupid."

She sniffs back tears and runs her hands through her hair, taking a deep, shuttering breath to mourn the loss of the most fantastic thing that has ever happened to her.

And she smells him.

It's distinctly foreign, like nothing she's ever experienced before this morning, something that instantly brings his face to mind in sharp relief. It's on her hands and in her hair. She presses her gold locks against her face and takes another deep breath, bringing the evidence of him back into her lungs. It's like something is lit within her soul and that burn in her belly starts to growl again.

He was here! He was! He left and took his meager possessions with him. Somewhere he's out there: Flynn, the perfect man without fangs, who said she was gorgeous and made her feel beautiful.

She has to find him.

She admits that a smell in her hair is flimsy evidence, but Mother never said that crazy people imagined smells. And if she's grasping at straws and Flynn doesn't exist, if she _is_ going crazy, then it will be best for her to leave now, before she hurts her mother or causes her mother to go crazy too.

She pushes herself up off the floor because she has to find him, she has to get out of the tower. She can't imagine living her life any longer with the knowledge that she's missing out on so much. She has to see it. She has to experience it again, the feel of his hands as they held her, the heat of his lips against her throat. The tower has never felt so confining.

When she was little, Rapunzel used to play pretend. She put on her mother's shoes, which were so large that she had to shuffle across the floor in order to walk. She wrapped herself in her mother's cloak, letting it drag behind her on the floor and slip down off one shoulder. She would dress up and pretend that she was outside, walking in the forest and seeing tree bark and worms and squirrels up close. She would traverse the forest of the main room of the tower, hiding under the table to avoid scoundrels and bandits, carefully headed towards the kitchen, where the food market was located. Rapunzel would be very, very brave and tell the evil merchant in the kitchen that she wasn't afraid of him and he better give her enough food to last the week. No skimping. And not too much, or she would get pudgy. After her epic show of bravery, the merchant would cower and give in, and Rapunzel would snatch up a loaf of bread and scurry back across the main room, giggling and victorious.

Mother never liked that game. Whenever she caught Rapunzel playing it she would take back her shoes and use them to slap the back of Rapunzel's calves. She was even more upset when she saw Rapunzel pretend that she was attacked by bandits, but had taken one of their swords and, with a wild war cry, murdered them all!

Mother had told her all about swords. They were long knives that bad men outside carried. Mother had spread her arms to show how long a sword could be, and Rapunzel's eyes had grown wide in fear and interest. "They'll use it to slice you open," Mother had said, slashing a long, sharp fingernail across the little girl's belly, making her flinch. "And you'll die. But before you die, you'll watch as all your warm, gooey insides spill out onto the ground."

A few times, Rapunzel pretended that the bandits had found her, captured her, and then killed her. She played out her own tragic, grizzly death on the floor of the tower. The scene was complete with groans of agony and gooey insides spilling out of her stomach.

Mother didn't seem to mind that game so much.

With this game in mind, Rapunzel decides that she ought to have shoes and a cloak. She should be prepared for sticker burrs that will attack her toes and for the bone chilling cold that will eat into her and sap her strength and leave her in a ditch to die. But she doesn't have shoes and her mother has the only cloak. She frowns and decides that she'll just have to be underdressed and she'll just have to shoulder the pain until she finds Flynn and he shows her where to find shoes.

She also decides that she needs a weapon. She doesn't have a sword, but then Flynn didn't have one either and he seemed to be doing alright. She thinks about taking the big kitchen knife, but then decides to leave it because Mother will need it when she comes back and finds her daughter gone and has to cook for herself. She won't need the cast iron skillet, though. She doesn't know how to use it really, and she definitely doesn't know how to clean it properly. And that had worked as an exceptionally good weapon against Flynn. He hadn't even seen her coming. Surely it will work just as well against ruffians if she's sneaky about it.

Tucking the frying pan under her arm, she looks around the tower once more. There are so many things that could possibly come in useful on this adventure, but she can't possibly carry them all, and the outside world must be so strange that preparing for it at all seems futile. As Pascal climbs up onto her shoulder, she decides that she has the essentials.

At last a fat drop of trepidation oozes down her spine. The tower is her home and she doesn't know when she'll return. Hopefully it would be soon. Once she makes certain that she's sane, once she's proven that she can handle herself. Maybe she can bring back the sword of one of the ruffians she'll overpower. Then Mother will _have to_ let her outside again, where she can sit in the sun and run really fast and be with Flynn again. Maybe she can bring back that glittery circlet Flynn had in his bag. That will impress her mother, prove her sanity, _and_ keep Flynn around for a time.

Yes. That sounds like a very good idea.

Mother will be furious. She'll fly into a rage and yell and pull at her hair. She'll be so worried that she'll be physically ill and there will be no one to care for her and make her soup and sing for her. Maybe when she comes back she can beg for forgiveness, but this is something that she simply has to do.

Filled with determination, she marches to the window, throws her hair over the hook, takes a deep breath, and - before she can change her mind or let her guilt eat away her conviction – she leaps.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The grass doesn't feel the way she thought it would. It's _more_. Touching it sends shivers through the bones in her legs. The blades stick out between her toes at random angles, and the longer she stays sill to feel it, the more she sinks into the mud.

She giggles excitedly, because mud has always oddly fascinated her. She bends and lifts one foot to inspect how dirty it is already. Mud is going to be one of those things that isn't really fun, but she's going to make it fun through sheer force of personality. Like washing her hair ("It's going to smell like strawberries when I'm done!") or chopping onions ("Maybe if I wash the onion really well first, I won't cry as much. It'll be an experiment!") or eating hazelnut soup ("It makes mother so happy when I say it's delicious. And she's trying so hard to do something kind for me. It's so nice of her!")

She gets distracted by the dandelions, which she's never seen up close. Once she asked her mother to pick one for her and bring it inside, but Mother scowled and said they were "weeds" and had no place in their clearing, much less in the tower.

It looks like a little globe, all geometric shapes, twinkling in the sunlight.

She splashes into the little stream, excited by how the water moves and how much of it there is. Little creatures swim on the surface of the water, hundreds of them all swarming together, moving as one. Maybe they're some sort of insect or a very, very small fish. It's hard to tell. Pascal eats one and she contemplates doing the same, just for the experience, but then she wrinkles her nose and decides against it.

Then she stills, because she still hasn't looked around at the bigger picture, at the world that's wider than a few flowers and a school of tiny fish. Slowly she turns away from the view that she's seen out her tower window for eighteen years, to gaze for the first time at the scene behind her tower.

She gasps because it's like a veil has been lifted from her eyes, like the fog has rolled away, like her mind has expanded by leaps.

She knew there was a waterfall behind the tower, just out of sight. Mother mentioned it a few times, and then told her that it was just falling water and nothing worth getting all excited and flustered about. Once when Mother was gone, Rapunzel took down her curtains, attached her hand mirror to the end of her curtain rod with a very large amount of twine, and held the jerry-rigged contraption out the window in hopes of getting a peek at the waterfall. The mirror slipped loose and fell to the ground, where it smashed into a thousand glittering pieces.

When Mother returned she thought that Rapunzel had thrown the mirror out the window on purpose, and she was very, very angry. Mirrors don't grow on trees. But of course, it had never occurred to Rapunzel before that mirror-trees existed.

Rapunzel always imagined that the waterfall was like rain, but this is _so_ much different. And now she realizes that it has a noise too. That soft, background rumble, that was so constant that she had never even noticed it before, is coming from the falls.

She sinks to her knees.

It's so beautiful. It's so breathtaking. And just by turning around, her world has already doubled in size since this morning. _At least_ doubled - maybe more.

It's almost too much to bear, and sobbing, she collapses into the grass.

* * *

><p>She knows how to leave the clearing. She's watched her mother do so often enough. But after that she's completely lost. Part of her was expecting there to be a long trail to follow and at the end of it there would be Flynn. She immediately recognizes that that's a stupid, misguided idea.<p>

Oh dear.

Oh well. He probably went straight, because straight seems the best way to go. It's the path of least resistance. Maybe in a little while there will be a reason to turn left or right, but at the moment the forest around her looks like a homogeneous mess of different shades of green. Green mixed with yellow, green mixed with more yellow, green mixed with blue and purple and red, greens so dark they're almost black patterned against fluffy light greens that remind her of the color of clouds.

There are so many things to see that her worries of getting lost and finding Flynn and meeting ruffians are shoved into the background. She picks up a pine cone and lets its prickles bite into her fingers. It makes a great deal of sense that it smells like Mother's pine scented candles, the kind that she buys at the market went she gets tired of how the tower always "smells like a creative drought." It tastes grainy and bitter, and Rapunzel decides that it would be best to stop licking things.

She wishes she had a basket to hold all the amazing things she's finding so she can study them and classify them later. She finds a rock that sparkles and she's pretty sure it's a quartz, but she's not quite sure which variety. She finds so many new kinds of trees that she's only heard described in her botany book, and she wishes that she could collect samples from every one so she could press them and make a scrap book or a notated encyclopedia or something.

The little animals are also interesting, but she's seen them before from afar, and they seem to think that that's close enough. She tries to explain to a raccoon that she's friendly and just wants to pet him, but he's unconvinced and climbs a tree to glare down at her and make an angry chirping noise.

How rude.

Then she spots the flier. It's like the kind Flynn had in his bag, saying, "Wanted. Flynn Rider. Thief." There's a picture of him that isn't very good, and for like the eighth time that hour, she wishes that she had a pencil. If she did she could correct it. Flynn has a perfect face, and getting it wrong like this is just unacceptable.

She frowns and pulls at the nails securing the flyer to the tree until after a bit of struggling and a scraping noise that hurts her teeth, it comes loose. She folds it neatly and takes it with her. Flynn doesn't deserve this kind of libel against his features, and she doesn't want him to be recognized and arrested.

"Arrested" is what the Royal Guards do to you if they find you. They wear bright, red shirts and big, gold hats, and they take you away and throw you in a dark, tiny room without windows where it's cold and wet and rats will gnaw on your ankles. You'll be chained to the wall and tortured and then left to die of starvation.

Rapunzel spends the next few hours collecting all the wanted posters she finds, pressing them into a thin, neat stack and feeling much more confident about her adventure. Flynn had one of these in his bag, so he must have come this way. Maybe he'll come back this way, or maybe she'll eventually find someone who knows where he went. If she's very brave and demanding she'll be able to convince them to tell her.

She has this thought at about the same time that she comes across a road. It's not very big or paved and it doesn't look like it's seen much use, but it's obviously a road nonetheless. She hesitates a moment, checking in both directions for any sign of life, before she takes the plunge and steps onto it.

Every now and then she hears a noise and immediately ducks into the bushes with a squeak. It always turns out to be nothing – the wind or a small animal – which is good because her hair never makes it all the way into the bushes with her. It trails behind her down the middle of the road, like a shining trail pointing straight to her hiding place.

After another hour of this, the woods open up and the road takes a turn, and laid out below her is a squat, dilapidated building. She finds it to be oddly menacing. Smoke rises from the chimney and the air smells like… like smoked fish and sweet sauce and something stale and warm and muggy. The sounds from the building seem dampened somehow, as if there are a great many people making a great deal of noise but their voices are cut off and imprisoned by the overall looming feel of the place.

She hides again and pulls her hair close into a sort of cocoon, watching the first real sign of civilization she has ever seen in her entire life. There's something exciting about that. Just a stone's throw away there are _people_. People she could see if she just got a bit closer. What would they look like? How evil would they be?

She continues to watch, hoping to get some sign of what's inside, hoping that the more she looks at it the less frightening it will feel. These don't happen, and the only thing that changes over the next fifteen minutes is that her stomach begins to growl. She realizes that part of the smell coming from the place must be some new kind of food. She wonders what it tastes like, if it's made of human flesh, and how she can get some.

Her hair is going to be a problem if she's trying to go for stealth. Someone could grab it to catch her, or grab it and cut it. It needs to be closer to her body, more compact, more easily protected. Working quickly, she makes several long loops that fall to her waist, removing twigs and leaves as she goes. She ties it up in a hasty, complicated knot at the back of her head that both pulls at her scalp and feels as though it might slip out at any moment. It's not at all neat, and little strands are left to stick up at haphazard angles.

She can't see it, but she imagines what it looks like and grins at her resourcefulness. She grins because she's heard stories of the motherless, wild children who run rampant through the woods, howling and thieving. Now she's one of them and if she could only find some war paint to streak across her face she would look the part too. Maybe she should have left those sticks in her hair.

Thus prepared, she dashes out of her hiding place and scurries up to one of the windows, pressing herself against the side of the building and holding very still for a moment until she's sure she hasn't been spotted. She takes hold of the windowsill and pushes herself up onto her tiptoes to peek inside.

Immediately she drops back down again with a stifled gasp, because none of her mother's stories could have prepared her for the sight inside.

They're giants! Huge and burly. Some of them look twice her height and four times her width, and some of their necks are thicker than her waist. They're going to grind up her bones to make bread just like in that story where the little girl didn't love her mother enough!

She holds her breath and eases back up to get a better look. They look a bit like animals, wearing hats with horns and shirts made of fur. Up close she can hear that their voices are low and growling, and the smell is entirely unpleasant – like Pascal in high summer. One man's face and bare arms are covered in cuts and pockmarks. One man throws back his head and lets out a grating bark of laughter, displaying yellowed, uneven teeth that are chipped and filed. One man is missing a hand and wears a hook in its place. It would be perfect for disemboweling.

On closer inspection, she thinks that maybe her messy hair isn't as intimidating as she first thought.

Her fear begins to dissipate, replaced by a determination that furrows her eyebrows together and sets her jaw with purpose. Even on careful inspection, she doesn't see Flynn, and there's no way she's asking these giants if they've seen him. With a small bite of disappointment, she decides to grab something to eat, then continue her search elsewhere.

She skirts around the building, peeping in windows as she goes, making her way toward the back where they might keep their kitchen. Eventually she finds it: a smaller room crowded with barrels and crates and a massive brick oven that heats her cheeks even from outside and is covered in a thick layer of soot and grime. A great rack of some sort of meat is cooking (and burning) and she can't make out what animal it came from.

She's never eaten much meat - only on special occasions, and then it's always made her sick afterwards. Whatever the ruffians are cooking might not be something that she can live with herself after eating anyway.

Not seeing any thugs, she slips in through the rickety back door and quickly inspects their produce. She's not even going to touch the apples, which look beyond mushy and well past rotten. But the pears don't look too terrible, with just a few brown spots that she can easily eat around.

She's trying to hold two pears in her free hand, balancing them in her palm when she's grabbed from behind. A beefy hand clutches her arm, and the pears topple and roll, and she's spun around to face a man more hideous than her worst imaginings. He looms over her, bent so his face comes so close to hers that she can feel his horrible breath across her face. He's so close that she leans backwards to get away, pressing herself against a crate, her nose wrinkled from the smell, her eyes widened in fear.

He grins at her and she feels her skin crawl, and she tries to pull away, but he squeezes her, addressing her with a kind of loping, sing song in his voice.

"Well, what do we have here?"

"Let me go," she says, a growl breaking into her voice as she struggles, as his fist tightens painfully around her arm.

"No. I don't think so, girlie."

"Let go!" She grabs her frying pan with her free hand and hits him in the arm with a ringing CLONG.

He blinks once at her, then looks down at his uninjured arm, then at her frying pan.

Then he laughs, and his laugh makes her _so angry_ that she takes another swing at him, this time aiming for his head, but he grabs her again and twists her, pinning her entire body in the crook of his elbow, crushing her back against his chest and the matted, furry shirt he's wearing. She can't move her arms, and he half drags half carries her away, and he's still laughing, and she's so mad and scared and embarrassed that it feels as though her face is on fire.

She's lugged into the next room, where there's a great deal of shouting, and suddenly she's being passed from hand to sweaty hand. She's being spun and groped so much she can't even tell how many people there are. Hands grip her arms and her sides, her hips and her chest. They catch on her skirt and pull at her hair. And she squeezes her eyes shut and thinks _oh no oh no oh no, not my hair. Please don't cut it. Please don't cut it._

At last she comes to rest, restrained by an arm around her waist and an arm around her throat, pulling her head back painfully and cutting off her air supply. She pushes up onto her tiptoes and desperately claws into his flesh to try to find some support.

She stops struggling and instead finds herself pushing back against her captor, cowering closer to him even as she gears him, as the man with the hook leans forward to inspect her. The hook slides against her skin, cold and stinging, and it tips her chin even further upwards before turning her face this way and that.

His eyes crawl over her form in a way that makes her squirm, in a way that makes her muscles tense to run away. "Now what's a pretty thing like you doing here?"

"I…"

The hook bites into the side of her neck and she cries out in fear and surprise more than pain.

_I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die._

"I- I was looking…"

She swallows, her throat bobbing against the metal of the hook, fear gripping at her lungs – or maybe it's also that she can't breathe.

She's supposed to be brave. She _needs_ to be brave.

"I was looking for someone." Her voice comes out smaller than she likes.

_It's not real. It's not real. Oh, please don't let this be real. _

"And who's that then?"

"Flynn," her voice flutters. "Flynn Rider."

"Who the hell's that?" He pitches his voice so it's more a question for the mob than for her.

What would she say anyway?

"The poser on the posters."

"He was here last week. Remember? He cheated at cards."

"The mouthy one, whose pants were too tight and thought he was hot shit."

"Oh," Hook-hand-man says in grumbling irritation, "_Him_." He rolls his eyes and turns back to his captive. "What's that make you then? He run out without paying or did he just run out?"

The mob snickers, and Rapunzel's face flushes again, knowing they're laughing at her expense. And she doesn't understand why they're laughing, and that just makes it worse.

She grits her teeth and glares, because now she's all spit and fire on the inside. She growls out her question.

"Have you seen him or not?"

It only makes them laugh harder.

Then despite the laughter, the hook-hand-man drops his face close to hers and drops his voice until it's deadly.

"No."

The look in his eyes makes her stomach plummet and then there are hands on her again, bunching up her skirts and pulling at her bodice, groping and squeezing in ways that hurt, in ways that make her feel dirty. She struggles and screams and then she thinks of Flynn and how he touched her and how it was wonderful and how this is awful and _this can't be real_ and _stop, stop, stop!_

She throws herself to the side, and yanks her arms free, and swings her skillet backwards with a cry of rage and every ounce of strength coiled within her.

It smashes into the face of the man restraining her, breaking his nose with a nauseating crunch and a splurt of blood that splatters across her cheek.

For a moment everything is deathly still except for the agonized man slumped to the floor cradling his face, and Rapunzel's heavy breathing as she finds her feet, takes a stance, and raises her weapon to defend herself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Rapunzel is quick and nimble. Strength isn't on her side, but she's small enough and fast enough to duck and dodge and twist, using the ruffians' bulk and momentum against them. They dive at her and end up smashing into tables, which explode in a shower of splinters. She sidesteps and bashes one with her frying pan as he goes past. The hit echoes with a ringing crack and he stumbles a few more steps before collapsing to the floor.

The real problem is her height, because the best way to bring down an attacker is to hit him over the head, but some of them are tall, and some of them have helmets. Some of them have shields that she can pound against repeatedly without making a dent or slowing them down. So she finds herself standing on top of the bar, swinging her frying pan and dancing from side to side to avoid all the dangers flying at her left, right, and center.

While fending off a man with an axe and hair like a rat's nest, she manages to pull out about ten feet of hair with one hand and several frantic tugs. When she throws it around a man's neck and, with a jerk of her wrist, slams his head into a table, she realizes that she's in her element. She wields blunt trauma in one hand and a great tendril of gold in the other, coordinating her fluid movements in a twisted ballet.

For a moment as she turns she is like some mythic creature risen from the sea, like some magical joining of siren and kraken. She is a flower with tendrils that reach out to strangle and menace.

She throws a loop of hair around one man's foot, and as he stumbles he hits a table and a chair on his way down. Another loop alters the course of a man's fist as it's thrown at her, causing him to hit his neighbor instead, and she whacks him with her skillet in his moment of shock. One tendril wraps tight around a man's sword and pulls it straight out of his hand, and she feels immensely proud of herself in the moment before she refocuses on her battle, beating at a man who's gotten too close with her frying pan so that his jaw jolts unnaturally to the side. She whips her hair, and several heavy mugs of something dark and sticky shoot off the bar to fly into the face of a new wave of attackers.

She's doing pretty well, all things considered. She's still alive, she's yet to be stabbed, and there is an ever growing pile of limp bodies on the floor around her. Several cuts mark her skin and her knuckles are raw and she can feel a bruise blossoming on her hip, but she has no idea where they came from and she's only starting to feel them now that there's a stitch growing in her side. She suspects that the bruise is self inflicted in one of her more wild swings.

She's slowing down and one of the ruffians latches onto her ankle with a meaty hand. She slams her frying pan against his fingers, which turn an angry red. He howls but it's cut off as she hits him once more right under his chin on the upswing, knocking him backwards and throwing him off balance. His grip loosens on her foot, but not enough, and she topples to the floor with him, hitting her head on the bar and landing awkwardly on her knee.

Her vision blurs and there's a pain radiating so intensely in her skull that it feels as though it's stuffed and bursting with cotton. She hisses and squeezes her eyes closed as colorful spots pop in the blackness. She tries to push herself up, but her legs shake and she slumps back onto the floor.

_Get up. Get up. Get up. Get up._ But she can't.

It's all over. She can feel the thugs surround her and she can't bring herself to look up to see it. Their long shadows creep over her, dimming the already weak light. Their clothes rustle as they edge forward. Their smell grows stronger and the air gets warmer and the sinister air they emit seems to soak deeper and deeper into her skin.

She swallows and squeezes her eyes tight, repeating again and again that it's not really happening.

It can't be happening.

Then the shadows disperse. The texture of the silence changes from one of building tension to one of surprise and confusion. Sharp, uneven footsteps approach her, and they seem to echo as the thugs move aside. She tries to swallow and still her shaking hands before looks up to see what new horror could make even giants stand down.

It's horrible.

She scurries to her feet heedless of the pain and the way the world is spinning and presses herself backwards as far as she can until she's pressed against the bar, leaning back to get away. It's a _monster_, with four legs and white hair and great, narrowed eyes that burrow right into her soul. It's great nostrils flare as it smells her – as it pushes right up into her face and breathes and rasps and snorts, its breath hot and damp. It buries it's nose in her hair, against her neck, against her chest and stomach, breathing in her scent so earnestly that the suction pulls at her dress.

She cringes and hopes that it kills her quickly. She hopes that it kills her before it starts taking great bites out of her flesh. She doesn't think she could handle that.

The monster pulls back and surveys her for a moment, it's eyes tracing over her form to decide where it should strike first. It snorts as though coming to a decision it doesn't really like (maybe that she's too bony to be eaten?) And it reaches forward with its great, white teeth and grabs her by the hair.

"Eep! Let go!"

She clutches at the locks between the monster's teeth and her scalp to try to gather some slack, but it's no use. The beast drags her unceremoniously out of the building, past the startled ruffians and out to the road again. It's all Rapunzel can do to jog to keep up with its steady, determined paces.

It marches her a fair distance from the giants before it tosses her to the ground and takes up its inspection once more. She holds her breath and keeps her every muscle tensed as the beast traces its nose over her stomach and her legs again. For a moment it moves to smell her hair, then it returns to her skirts.

It looks like it has a mission now. It looks focused and firm. Even through all its horror, there's something commanding about it, something that demands respect. Her protests die in her throat.

And she realizes that it's not interested her at all. It's interested in something else.

"Do- do you like the way I _smell_?"

It glances up at her and blinks once before returning to its work. It strikes her as an oddly human gesture.

She swallows and gathers her courage enough to slowly raise her hands, leaving her frying pan in the grass.

"Please. Please don't hurt me."

The creature pulls back, looking confused and maybe a bit… offended?

"Easy," she breathes. "Easy."

It stares at her for a drawn out moment during which she can picture the beast striking out and biting off both her hands at the wrist.

She bites her lip and holds painfully still.

Very slowly, the creature eases his nose into her hands. The look in his eyes makes her think that he's trying not to scare her, he's trying to be friendly.

She lets her hands relax against his muzzle, feeling the coarseness of his skin.

They exhale together, and she can't help but smile at the way his ears flop.

She glances back towards the ruffians' lair to see that a few of them have stepped outside to watch. They're curious, but afraid and they stay within a few yards of the entrance. Rapunzel's not sure if they're wary of her or of the creature.

He draws her attention back as he begins to sniff her hands, ears perking up and eye dancing with excitement, as if he's found something very interesting.

"You like that?"

He snorts.

"You're probably smelling Flynn."

He jerks up to look her in the eye, and she reaches out to scratch his chin, which he seems to like. He lifts his head to give her better access, and she catches sight of a sun shaped medallion on his chest.

_Maximus_.

She assumes that's the creature's name. But then again it might be some kind of title, or even the name of whoever made the harness he's wearing. She reasons that if she were to give Pascal a collar and write something on it, that something would be his name. Oh! She should get Pascal a collar!

"Do you know who Flynn is?" she asks. "Wait. I've got his picture here somewhere."

With a bit of effort, she pulls one of the fliers she collected out of her sleeve (from which disappointingly enough some of the lace has ripped loose.)

"Here. Have you seen him? This isn't a very good picture, but I'd really like to find him. Do you know where he is? Can you help me?"

Maximus lights up with excitement, gives her another good sniff, then plants his nose to the ground to search for Flynn Rider.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"You know what I like about you?" Flynn asks the squirrely man sitting across from him. "Aside from your very nice waistcoat, that is."

The man's eyes narrow and his frown deepens. His gaze darts to Flynn's boots, which are propped up lazily on the table, then back to the thief.

"It's your sense of humor! Really. You, my friend, are hilarious. You should perform in town square. People would go crazy."

"Show us the crown."

"See, this is what I'm talking about. Your sense of humor."

The man rolls his eyes. "Where is it?"

"I've hidden it." The smugness in Flynn's voice is only matched by the smug look on his face. "You didn't think I'd bring it in here with me, did you? I left it with a friend for safe keeping."

"You don't have any friends."

"Aww, you can't fool me," Flynn grins. "You and me are best buddies. I know it. You know it. Just admit it. You'll feel better."

"Then maybe you should leave the crown with _me_ for safe keeping."

"Touché." Flynn kicks his feet off the table and leans forward, drawing his face into something more serious, a face he's practiced and honed to perfection to show he means business and he's not going to take any of this "I'm a sketchy, cheating middle man" runaround shit.

"Show me the money."

"Show me the crown."

Flynn says it again, a bit more slowly, with a bit more bite to his words. "Show me the money."

Behind him, the middle man's hired muscle shifts, probably flexing their biceps or patting their sword hilts. They're there to be intimidating, to throw him off, to make him flinch. Also to murder him if he gets to be too much of a problem or break his legs if he tries to pull a fast one.

Flynn ignores them, devoting all his piercing focus on the little man in front of him. For a moment they have a stare down, which the middle man tries desperately to win. He's trying so hard that Flynn's easy raise of an eyebrow throws him completely. He blinks several times in confusion, then leans back again and frowns.

The thief tries not to look too smug. There's a fine line he has to walk between being so cocky they murder him outright just to be rid of him, and so compliant that they just take what they want from him, beat him to a pulp, and throw him in a ditch.

With a simple hand gesture from the middle man, one of the brutes steps forward and drops an overly large burlap sack onto the table, making a noise that's somehow both a clunk and a flutter.

That's the noise money makes.

The brainless mountain of muscle growls before stomping back to his post, and Flynn lets him get a fair distance away before reaching for the bag.

"Hey! Slowly!" the middle man snaps, eyeing the thief's fingers as though expecting him to do some sort of sleight of hand and make the whole stash disappear. Flynn holds up his hands in a show of indulgent passivity. He then makes a show of pushing his sleeves further up his arms so he can't slip anything inside. Using your sleeves to hide things is amateur hour anyway. He then pulls the bag towards himself with clear, exaggerated movements.

It's so tightly packed with bank notes that he has to tug a bit to pull out one of the many bundles. He does some hasty math to be sure the amount's about right as he flips through the stack quickly with a thumb, making an annoying shuffling noise. On further consideration as he replaces it securely with its fellows, it would be pretty easy to snatch one or two bundles without anyone noticing and be on his way. But he's got his eye on more than that.

He deserves more than that. He deserves everything in that bag, and if he just keeps cool and plays his cards right, he'll have it in a matter of moments. That castle's so close he can taste it.

"Alright, now show us the crown."

"I told you-"

"-And I say you're full of shit. Hand it over."

This is not a good development. It's never good when the guy buying off you gets twitchy, gets angry. It's never good to give in to demands like this too easily. It makes you look weak. And if he looks weak, they'll take the crown, then (best case scenario) they'll take back the payment and tell him to get lost. They could do it too. Flynn's one guy against four and he's not really built for brawling.

He's built for stealth and planning and being unreasonably handsome.

The mental reminder that he has so many things going for him makes him more confident despite the situation. These losers can't screw him over like that. They need him for repeat business.

Of course there might not be any repeat business because they can all retire tomorrow. Plus this is the most valuable object in the entire kingdom so any further dealings would be a step down in prestige, danger, and pay out.

But Flynn's not going to let these minor details get in his way. He's going to waltz out of here a very rich man, and to do that he's going to reclaim the upper hand in this dealing. He's going to get back his advantage.

He smirks and sing songs, "You didn't say the magic wor-ord."

"Rider!" the man snaps.

"Ooo. Touchy. You need to calm down, buddy. Smell the roses. Paint a portrait. Drink some tea."

"Give. It."

The man holds out his hand, his fingers twitching in irritation, his face pinched into an ugly glare.

Flynn shakes his head and makes a tutting noise, then reaches into his vest to pull out the crown snuggled against his ribs. He sighs as he holds it out, dangling it carelessly from a finger. It only swings twice before it's snatched away and inspected. The middle man secures a jeweler's lens against his eye and inspects the crown with greedy fascination, and Flynn takes the opportunity to look around as if he doesn't give a shit.

Given the creaking floorboards and the smell of mildew and the poor light and poorer furnishings, it's hard to tell that they're really in the back room of one of the more reputable shops in the village. He accidentally meets the eye of one of the thugs standing against the wall, and quickly offers up a cheerful grin before turning his attention to his fingernails.

"What happened to your partners?" the little man asks without looking away from one of the larger crystals.

"Poor bastards. They were just too slow. Not really cut out for this kind of work, I suspect."

"They gonna rat on you?"

"Probably. Won't make much difference. I'm uncatchable."

"I'm sure. They gonna rat on me?"

"Can't talk about what they don't know. You see, I treat you like a dirty, little secret." He sighs for dramatic effect. "I'm not proud of it, but you're just too pretty to share. And where _did_ you get that waistcoat? The more I look at it, the more it grows on me."

The middle man shoots him an irritated look then turns back to the flowering sapphires. "Were you followed?"

"Nope. They chased me for a while, but I lost them in the woods about ten miles back. Got the best of four guards on horseback."

"How'd you manage that?"

"With integrity."

The lens drops from the man's eye straight into his hand, to be deposited back in his chest pocket as he looks up to glare again. "Damn it, Rider. This is serious. If you're not absolutely sure you weren't followed-"

"Absolutely sure. What kind of moron turncoat would I be to lead the guards straight here? Trust me. My hand to God, no one knows I'm here."

The man gives him a skeptical once over, and Flynn arranged his face to look like the most honest, loyal, and upstanding thief on Earth.

"Well, I guess I'll have to-"

But they don't find out what it was that the man would have to do (but Flynn sincerely hopes that it was going to be "give you all this money") because the hidden door to the front workshop creaks open to let in a clear beam of sunlight and the small, musical voice of a girl.

It's a voice that very clearly asks, "Flynn?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Flynn's face is slammed against the table, leaving his head ringing and his face stinging so bad it pulses and burns and - oh God - his nose! He doesn't get a chance to look surprised. He doesn't get to turn to see who's interrupted him and ruined his day and probably signed his death warrant.

He tries to throw off the man holding him down, but there's one huge hand pressing painfully between his shoulder blades and a vice like grip around both his wrists. Behind him he hears a girl scream and a mad shuffle to silence her.

"Oh, your hand to God, was it?"

The middle man's voice is so low and close to his ear that he immediately stops struggling. His muscles tighten as he tries to think, but all he can do is ask himself the same questions again and again in rapid succession. What's going on? Who knew he was coming here? How's he going to talk himself out of this? _What's going on?_

"Who is she?" the middle man growls.

"I don't know," Flynn says, his voice muffled by the table and his anger.

"She seems to know you. Don't you, Sweetheart?"

He hears a muffled cry that doesn't sound much like assent, but at the same time it sounds a bit like his name.

He manages to fight against the restraining force on his spine enough to turn his head – an action the brute holding him rewards by redoubling his efforts and slapping Flynn's face back against the table. It feels like his eyes are going to pop out, and it takes him a moment to focus enough to see the girl that's ruined everything for him.

This is when he gets his chance to look surprised.

"Blondie?" he breathes, and he's immediately grateful that no one hears him over the hiss of pain as his arms are pulled backwards to a more constricting angle.

The girl is being held from behind, her arms pinned to her sides, her terrified eyes just visible over the hand slapped across her mouth. It's a hand large enough to engulf most of her face.

There's no denying that it's the girl from the tower.

"Who is she?"

"I-"

How did she get here? Did she follow him? How? Why?

A hand fists in his hair and yanks backwards against the force holding him down, and he cringes as the vertebrate between his shoulders pop. He's about to be snapped in half, and the feeling is terrifying on many different levels.

His voice is strained and higher than usual as he grunts, "Never seen her before in my life… This is some kind of set up." He emphasizes his words by shifting his shoulders in a useless attempt to shake the hands off his body. They grow more restricting each second, as though they're getting bigger, as though they're reaching into his chest to squeeze his lungs.

The middleman raises his eyebrows and searches Flynn's face for a moment before he pushes himself to his full height and turns to face the girl.

"He says he's never seen you before, Sweetheart. That true?"

The girl stares at him with big, bright eyes, and something gnaws at Flynn's insides. Very slowly, with a hand still pressed tight over her mouth, she nods her head. She probably thinks that agreeing with Flynn will get them both out of this. She thinks that Flynn has a plan that involves saving her too.

The middleman leans forward and puts on that sincere, trusting face that Flynn has seen him wear on several occasions. In the end, every one of those occasions turned out poorly for the recipient. It looks a bit like a pout, a bit like he cares or feels pity or empathy, like his blackened heart has the capacity to feel.

The man's a God damned snake. It's the only way to survive.

"Then how is it that you know his name?"

The girl freezes, her breath catching and holding tight. There's a moment's pause and then her eyes glide over to Flynn, looking for help, looking for hints or answers. But he's got nothing and she's just given them both away.

"Ah." The middleman makes a gesture, and the hand keeping her silent falls away. For a moment she looks almost grateful, until her head is snapped to one side, her cheek instantly reddening as she's slapped across the face.

There's a second where the world seems to stop, where everything holds perfectly still, where her shock is almost palpable. Her delicate face is still turned and Flynn watches as she bats back the tears that have sprung to her eyes. It's a moment when she changes - in her eyes, in the wrinkles on her nose, in the way she holds her shoulders. And suddenly he's looking at a different person.

She turns back slowly, her lips pursed and her nose twitching, her eyes narrowed into a glare.

Then she lunges forward with a growl, only to be pulled back again.

There's something unsettling about the change that's washed over her, but the middleman seems amused and Flynn has bigger things to worry about.

The middle man approaches him again, bending at the knees to squat and look him in the eye. "Your girl's feisty."

Flynn glares at him.

"Cute too." He looks up and down the girl's form in a way that makes her obviously uncomfortable. "You know, in that boney, malnourished sort of way. Didn't know you were into that, but whatever gets you off."

Flynn considers spitting at him, but he's not sure he can pull it off.

"So, you thought you'd just… bring her along with you?"

"I didn't."

"You didn't? Then how'd she get here?"

"How should I know? Look, this is crazy. You gotta believe me."

"And why the fuck should I do that?"

"Just... She must of followed me."

"I thought no one could possibly follow you."

"Yeah, well..."

"And if this little girl can do it, why can't the guards? Huh?"

"Just let me explain-"

Flynn's head is thrown against the table so hard that it bounces. This time he hears something crack. This time he feels blood on his forehead, in his nose, in his mouth. Behind him the girl cries out again.

The middle man continues, his voice so cool and crisp and in such contrast to the agony in Flynn's head and arms and back and the way he's choking on his own blood. "Yeah, you know what? No. I'm done with you, and I'm not going to sit here wasting time while you feed me some stupid story."

Flynn has to cough to clear his throat. He has to take several shuttering breaths before he can even think of answering.

Any comment he was going to make is cut off by a scream, and it's not the high pitched wail of the girl, but rather a gravely, petrified howl as Blondie bites into the hand across her face and digs her fingernails into the man's arm. The man pulls back to cradle his bloody hand, and she slips free the moment his loosening grip allows it. She dances clear and snatches the first heavy thing in sight: an oil lamp. Then she twirls and in a single motion bludgeons the man in the temple. A shower of shattered glass explodes from her weapon, twinkling like fairy dust while he falls to the floor.

She spins again to face the middle man, and for a moment she glares at him while he looks at her with something akin to shock.

A tendril of hair leaps out at him in the same moment that he lunges for her, and they grapple back and forth, him punching, her dodging. She loops a ribbon of hair around his foot while he grabs the wrist holding her lamp, which swings wildly back and forth throwing their looming, spindly shadows across the walls.

Flynn's too nauseous to watch their battle, which winds across the room as they bob and circle. He clenches his eyes shut and coughs up some more blood.

He looks up just in time to see the lantern fly from her hand and careen towards his head, and he and the brute behind him jerk backwards just in time as the lamp crashes onto the table and the whole thing explodes in flames.

"Shit!" Flynn lunges for the money, scorching his hand in the fire that burns through the burlap. The bills inside turn black and curl, like delicate fingers beckoning him forward. But a thick hand grabs at his shoulder to pull him away, pulling him away from the danger or just keeping him restrained he doesn't know. He doesn't care. His dreams are burning in front of his eyes.

He struggles and jerks backwards to ram his head against his attacker's face and throw him off. The act probably hurts him more than the other guy, and his head seems to explode with white hot pain.

_Note to self: your head is not a weapon._

He turns and smashes his fist into the man's stomach purely on instinct. He can't even see through the pain and the rolling, black smoke. With a few more hits, the man falls to the floor and Flynn staggers, barely able to keep his feet, not even knowing why he should keep going after such a brutal loss. He finds himself staring mindlessly at what was once a table, what was once everything he ever wanted or needed or hoped for.

The fire spreads across the floor, crawling forward in staggered leaps, eating everything in its path.

The girl finally draws him out of his stupor. She's losing ground in her fight, and she looks frightened of the fire encroaching on her, and of the man who's now swinging a knife at her hair.

And Flynn's mind changes. He does have one thing left, and that's revenge. Revenge, revenge, revenge. God, he was so close. _So close._

That's what he tells himself while he wraps his hands around the middle man's throat from behind. That's all he can think as the man's legs give out, as he goes limp.

He continues to think that when the girl grabs his arm. This is her fault too, and for a moment he glares at her with all the fury of his soul. He glares at her and his jaw tightens, and his fists clench.

She can see the anger on his face, lit bright by the inferno growing around them. She can see it and it terrifies her.

But she swallows and tightens her grip on his arm. She tugs and he moves forward reluctantly.

She pulls him outside as the building collapses around them with a series of snaps and a rumbling groan.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Rapunzel has to support most of Flynn's weight as they stagger into the forest, and they don't make it very far before he collapses, his limbs thrown across sprawling tree roots.

"Flynn? Flynn?" She drops to the ground, exhausted and rubbing soot and sweat from her brow. Pulling his head into her lap, she brushes his hair from his face and presses her hand to his cheek, hoping for a response, hoping to feel the life still within him. "No, no, no. Stay with me."

He doesn't respond and he looks ghastly, his face a mask of blood and pain.

In the distance she can hear people shouting as they try to put out the fire, and she can see the pillar of smoke stretching to the sky. She hopes that everyone is too distracted to stumble upon them as she drapes her hair carefully over Flynn's forehead, soaking up his blood, darkening the gold color, leaving her tresses matted and grizzly. His breath wheezes and he chokes, and she stops trying to be careful, and just heaps her hair onto his face.

She checks him quickly for further injuries, and finds his hand blistered and weeping. His flesh is an angry red color that makes her want to cradle it lovingly, pityingly to her chest. At the same time she wants to throw it aside as something disgusting. She loops a strand of hair around it and looks away.

With one final check that no one is watching, she begins to sing. She keeps her song quiet, therefore her voice doesn't have its usual fullness. The tempo is a touch faster than usual. She needs to hurry, but at the same time she holds herself back from rushing. She needs to do it right.

A familiar glow washes over her face as the magic runs down like rain against glass. She feels that flutter in her stomach like she's spun in circles too much, or run in place or jumped on the bed for too long. The magic both drains and revitalizes her, like she desperately wants to sleep but isn't allowed, like she's only kept afloat artificially.

She watches through clouded eyes as the blood on Flynn's face and clothes fades and evaporates until it seems as though it was never there. Slowly, gently, the glow fades and his breath evens and her hair is no longer a horrifying mess of gore.

His eyes twitch, then open groggily, no longer puffy and bloodshot, but back to that wonderful brown that she finds so fascinating. How can they be so sharp and so warm at the same time?

He frowns upon recognizing her, then splutters and swats at her hair to get it off his face. The majority of it ends up in a tangle and a few individual strands snag around his fingers, which just irritates him more.

Despite her protests that he should rest, he pushes himself to his feet and absently checks the shape of his nose and the state of his forehead.

"I cleaned you up a bit," she says, her voice weak from fatigue and her own uncertainty.

His only response is to frown more deeply. Seeming to decide that his injuries weren't that bad to begin with, he shrugs off his miraculous recovery and turns his back to her.

The tension that she didn't know she was holding in her shoulders drops. His disinterest is relieving because if he found out what she could do, he would think she's a freak, and she doesn't want that. He's already mad at her.

She really wants him to like her. That's why she fixed up her hair into something more attractive on the way to see him. At least she hoped it was attractive. Pascal and Maximus told her that she looked lovely, but Flynn didn't seem to notice, and then it got all ruined. At least now after her healing it's back to being silky and shiny and - if you ignore the big tangle – the texture is the best it's been all day. But then, if Flynn didn't notice that while it was piled on his face, he probably won't notice now.

"Fuck," he groans, running a hand angrily through his hair as he stares up at the column of smoke from the fire. "Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck._" Growling at the ground and muttering under his breath, his hair is left sticking up in the front, he begins to pace.

Rapunzel has no idea what to do. Part of her wants to run to him and comfort him and reassure him that it will be alright. Whatever it is that has him so distraught will pass. But another part of her knows that he wouldn't appreciate that, and she's also a bit afraid of him.

A voice reminds her that he wouldn't hurt her, that she trusts him.

It sickens her how difficult it is to believe the voice.

She clenches her jaw and stays brave and quiet, and, just like when her mother gets this upset, she tries to push down the butterflies in her heart.

"Everything lost… " He grumbles. "All up in flames… Right there in front of me…"

He rounds on her abruptly, making her jump, and raises his voice out of its mutterings. "And how the hell did you find me? What are you doing here? What were you _thinking_?"

Her voice is like a squeak and she finds herself reflexively backing into a tree as he stalks closer. "I- I followed Maximus."

"And who's Maximus?"

"He's- umm- He's big," She raises a hand to try to mark the beast's height. "And he's got white hair, and a long nose, and four legs."

Flynn blinks at her a few times in obvious confusion, and she nods, trying to think if there's anything else that would help with her description.

"You mean a horse?"

"Horse." She rolls the word around on her tongue. Horse. Horse. Hoarse? It was nice to have a word so she could stop referring to him in her head as a "monster." He wasn't a bad monster. In fact he was kind of sweet once you got to know him, even though he didn't like how often she stopped to investigate things or how she had collected all the posters with Flynn's face on them.

Hadn't Flynn said earlier that morning that a horse had brought him to her tower? Does that mean that there's a horse somewhere that can track her? Track her mother? If that's the case, then why hadn't they found her years ago?

Flynn's eyes narrow slightly. "You led a royal horse to me."

"No," she corrects. "He led me."

"Oh, fantastic!" He throws his arms in the air and starts pacing again, which makes her feel more comfortable than when he's looming over her.

"Flynn?"

He stops his pacing, cutting off anything she was about to say, "But, _why_, Blondie?" The look in his eyes is distressed, but at least it's no longer angry. "What possessed you?"

"I- well-" She drops her eyes from him as a blush creeps across her face, and she pulls some of her hair close, running her fingers through it in a gesture that's habitual and comforting.

Isn't it obvious why she followed him? They shared something. He made her feel special. That wasn't something that happened every day.

How was she supposed to stay in her tower when she knew people like him existed? How was she supposed to go back to the way things were after she'd felt such sensations, after she'd felt such joy? It was like seeing color for the first time after a life of gray.

Why didn't he understand how earth shattering this was? Was it not as important for him? That's the thought that keeps her from answering. That's the thought that embarrasses her.

Then there's the fact that she left in part because she might be crazy, and - just like her magical hair - she doesn't want to share that with Flynn. It's something she needs to figure out for herself anyway.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Flynn groans.

She looks up to offer him an embarrassed, hesitant half smile, which only makes his face fall further.

He sighs, his shoulders slumping. "Look, kid. We've had some good times, what with you tying me up and busting up the biggest deal of my life. Getting me beaten to a pulp. Burning down a building. Killing my business partner-"

"I think you killed him."

"Tomato, tamahto. The point is: I think it's about time you went home."

"No!"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"You know. Those reasons. That I just listed."

"Please, Flynn! I won't cause any more trouble. I promise. Just let me come with you."

"No."

"But I thought we-"

"Yeah, you were wrong."

"Flynn!"

"Noooo."

Rapunzel bites her lip as the tears well up and threaten to spill over.

He offers her a shrug and a look that tells her that he's really not that sorry.

It only makes her feel worse, and she looks away in defeat.

"O-ok," she says.

"Good!" He claps her on the shoulder, and she cringes but he doesn't notice. "Smart move, Blondie."

She swallows without really clearing her throat, and reaches under her bodice to pull out the thing she stuck there for safe keeping. "Here. That man had it but- but it's yours, right?"

The abrupt change in his mood is unnerving. His hand clenches on her shoulder. His eyes grow so wide that they look as though they might fall out. He looks as though he's been frozen.

"Flynn?" She holds it out further towards him in an encouraging kind of way, and when he still doesn't move, she pulls it back a bit, then starts inspecting it again.

"What is it anyway?" she asks. The shock on his face looks even more silly when distorted through one of the crystals. "It's very pretty."

He shakes his head slowly as if he doesn't believe it, as if he's trying to shake off the feeling but he's too stunned to even do that. "It's- it's a crown."

"Crown." Crown, crown, crown. Like the crown of you head. Oh, that makes sense!

She plunks it onto her head and smiles at him. "Like this?"

He comes out of his stupor and falls right back into shouting at her, which is starting to get a little old. "You had that the whole time?"

"Yes," she says. As an afterthought she adds, "Flynn, I don't think this is going to look that good on you."

"It's not for _me_!"

"Then who's it for?"

"I don't care! I just want to sell it."

"Oh, is that what you were doing when…"

"_Yes_!"

"Oh."

He props one hand on his hip, drops his forehead into the other, and sighs in aggravation.

She shifts awkwardly, rubbing at a red jewel with her thumb and trying not to stare at him while he massages his temples.

Finally, he looks at her again, this time sizing her up, and she straightens her shoulders a bit to look more appealing.

"Ok, Blondie. Ok. I've got a plan."


	8. Chapter 8

**AN:** I finally got a beta. Everybody wave at Fabulist.

**Chapter 8**

The night is unbearably cold. Rapunzel curls into a tighter ball and hugs herself. She pulls her hair over herself like a blanket, but it doesn't help at all. Her feet are like ice and her hands are cold against her sides. Her teeth begin to chatter uncontrollably and she decides that this is intolerable.

She looks over at Flynn, who looks like he's sound asleep and has been for the last hour. How does he manage when it's this cold?

A twig snaps behind her and she gasps and jerks around, her eyes raking through the darkness. Maybe the giants have tracked her down to finish what they started. Maybe they're out for revenge. Maybe it's a different set of ruffians, because the world seems to be overflowing with them. Maybe it's the Royal Guards come to take Flynn away and snatch her up while they're at it. Then again it could be some sort of poisonous creature that glides and slithers over the ground, with dripping fangs and scales the color of a nightmare.

She thinks she can see it, something moving in the shadows, creeping closer and closer and she springs up to rush over to Flynn's side, pulling up short when she's an arm's reach away. He never explicitly said so, but she suspects that he doesn't want to snuggle with her.

She looks back at the darkness, shifting from foot to foot to try to dance some warmth into them, then she looks down at Flynn's sleeping form.

He's asleep. He won't know. And when he wakes up tomorrow he'll be irritable, but it'll be too late and he's irritable most of the time anyway. On this note, she plops to the ground, curls up next to him, and pulls her hair back around herself.

It's a slight improvement. It's almost as though his body shelters her from the wind, even though there isn't much wind to begin with. Just being near him makes her feel warmer and safer and she has the idea that if she was closer to him she would be even warmer.

She holds very still for a while, building up her courage and making sure that he's not going to wake up. Then, as gently and silently as she can, she shifts closer, pressing her body against his back, nuzzling her face between his shoulder blades.

He's so warm, even through his thick vest, and she feels bad because she's stealing all his body heat, soaking it up like a sponge. He can probably feel how cold her hands are, balled together and smooshed between her chest and his spine. He can probably feel the crown pressed against his lower back, but Rapunzel assumes that it's more uncomfortable for her than for him.

She tries to breathe shallowly, so as not to disturb him, but this only results in a need to take a deep, gasping breath every few minutes or so, which ruins the whole effect and makes her feel a bit spastic. Flynn's presence does that to her.

Now she can't sleep because the seams on Flynn's vest use a stitch she's never seen before and she traces them as lightly as she can as she studies them. Plus there's the fact that she's so close to him, and that has her far too excited to sleep. She wants to touch him more, and not just the needlework running down his back. She wants to press her palm flush against his skin, feel his form tight against her stomach. She wants to wake him up and kiss him – or maybe not wake him up and kiss him anyway.

These are all very strange things to want, but the thought of them draws tension up into her muscles and out into the air. It's a one sided tension, but that doesn't really matter. It still causes her head to spin.

She holds her breath for a moment, as if holding absolutely still for a time will make any future movements negligible, and then shifts to press closer, to rub against him ever so briefly. She closes her eyes and smiles to herself, because if she just forgets everything then this moment is wonderful.

"Blondie, what are you doing?"

His voice is so clear that it's instantly obvious that Flynn's not as deep a sleeper as she first thought. She sucks in a startled breath and holds absolutely still, because maybe he'll think she's asleep and let her stay where she is.

After a long, suffocating pause, he turns his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye. She stares at him because for whatever reason, because she's too startled or too dumb, she doesn't think of closing her eyes even though she's supposed to be asleep.

"Quit being weird," he says.

"Sorry."

"And would you stop putting your hair on me?" He brushes away part of her makeshift blanket.

"Sorry."

He sighs and sits up to look down at her and put some distance between them. "You can do better. If this is how you seduce people, we've got a lot of work ahead of us."

"Seducing people," whatever that means, is part of Flynn's plan. Sort of. "You won't need to _seduce_ seduce them," he'd said. "Just get them to go along with you. You know, make them give you what you want. You won't have to go all out with it. Probably."

Rapunzel still doesn't have any clue what he was talking about, but he's letting her tag around and she's going to be helpful, so maybe he'll let her stay with him even longer after that.

She doesn't understand his plan partially because he's using words and concepts without explaining them first. She assumes that she'll eventually figure it out from context.

She's partially not understanding the plan because she's pretty sure he's not telling her the whole thing, just her part. There must be something else happening that he's not explaining because it's too complicated for her or a secret or something. That's fine. He can keep secrets. She doesn't mind. She just hopes that he knows what he's doing.

The other reason she's having trouble understanding it is because it doesn't sound like a very good plan. She bites her tongue, because Flynn's the expert on these kinds of things and her concerns are probably really silly.

From what she's pieced together, there's a man that Flynn needs to see to sell the crown. But the man doesn't like seeing people. In order to get into the club he needs to have something pretty with him. Here Rapunzel assumes that a club is a new thing she's never heard of before and not something ogres use to beat unwitting travelers. But this still makes no sense. He's got the crown and that's pretty. Then Flynn himself is pretty, so they ought to let him inside.

Then she's supposed to soften up the man so he's receptive to buying the crown from Flynn. She understands this part, because she's softened her mother up several times. Now she's just wondering where she's going to get access to an oven, how they're going to get ingredients, and which kind of pie the man would like best.

These are just a few of the holes in Flynn's plan that worry her.

"You're too timid," he says. "It shows that you're scared, and if someone knows you're scared they're going to walk all over you. You've got to have confidence. If you want something, reach out and take it."

"…Oh." She drops her eyes to her hands, clasped together in her lap.

"This is not an improvement."

She looks up to shoot him a glare, and he quirks an eyebrow at her. "What do you want me to do?"

He shrugs. "You wanted something earlier. Try it again, but do it better this time."

She stares at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he's serious or if he's making fun of her.

"You're hesitating," he says, which makes her glare at him again.

"Just give me a second, I'm new at this."

He rolls his eyes like he doesn't believe her, like he doesn't care. And her renewed irritation with him pushes her forward to curl against his side and snuggle her head against his chest. He stiffens, and as an afterthought she grabs his arm and pulls it around her into a hug. She sighs as her body warms, as her muscles relax, as his nearness disperses all the negative things she's been thinking about him.

"This it?"

Ok, maybe not _all_ the negative things.

She shifts to look up at him. "I'm cold. I want you to keep me warm, so…" she shrugs, "this is what I'm doing."

"Yeah, I'm not buying it. If you just wanted to be warm, you wouldn't have been trying to feel me up."

She blushes and mutters, "was not."

"Uh huh."

She pushes away from him and glares. It's distressing how much she can love everything about him and absolutely hate him at the same time. It's something she doesn't know how to deal with.

Fine. He wants her to do what she wants, then that's what she'll do. She'll show him, and he'll shut up, and she'll get to touch his hair.

So that's what she does. She reaches out and strokes it, interlacing it between her fingers, tugging at a lock just to watch the way it falls back.

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm touching your hair," she snaps. "I like it and I want to touch it. You have a problem with that?"

"Yeah." He takes both her wrists in his hands and pulls them away. "Right now, all you're doing is petting my hair, which –aside from being a really weird thing to want to do – isn't enough. What you need to do is make me want you to touch my hair. Got it? Right now, I just think you're nuts. But if you convince me that I've never wanted anything more and it's the best thing ever, I'll go along with you and you'll have everything you want. Like tomorrow, we want him to buy the crown, but to do that we've got to convince him that he's never wanted anything more than to throw money at us and take the stupid thing away."

She gives him a skeptical look as she tries to process this new lesson. This is the clearest he's ever been and since he's in the mood for explaining things, it seems worth a shot to ask questions.

"How am I supposed to convince you?"

"Well, look at me. If I reached out and touched your hair right now, would you like it?"

She blushes and that's enough of an answer for him.

"Think about what I do to make that possible, and then do that."

She narrows her eyes and cocks her head to the side to try to pinpoint what it is about him that makes her feel the way she does. He doesn't cringe or shift uncomfortably as she stares into his face, and she appreciates that. He's trying to help her learn.

It's something about his eyes, the intensity, the focus. Something about the way he smiles, as if everything is easy and everything is going to be alright. It's his deep, sonorous voice that makes her shiver.

She closes her eyes, takes a breath, and when she opens them again they are full of fire. _You want this. You want this. You want this._ She repeats the thought again and again, with such strength that he might be able to hear it on the wind or see it in her gaze.

She reaches out – _no hesitation _- to trail her fingers over the seams on his vest – _no fear_ – her touch light, like his was against the back of her neck earlier that day. _Was that today? It seems so long ago now._

She slips closer with an easy grace and lets a hint of a smile melt against her lips. He seems to notice as his eyes shift towards them, filling her with confidence. He still looks bored, but there's something more there now, as if he's faking it, maintaining his uninterested look as some sort of teaching technique.

Her thumb grazes up his jaw line, then brushes against his ear, and she distinctly feels his chest tighten against hers even though he tries to hide it. He wants it, and with that she sweeps her hand into his hair, massaging his scalp in slow, satisfying circles.

His eyes flutter closed for a moment, his forehead creased, his jaw slack. And when he opens them again, she's hovering over him, all beauty and confidence.

She melts into his kiss, reveling in the security of his arms, in the warmth of his mouth and his hands. She's light headed and losing herself. It's only her and him, together, but it's him when he's not being rude and that's how she likes him best.

He breaks the kiss off with a groan, and it takes her a moment to recognize that it's not a good, deeply reflexive groan. It's a groan of irritation, because she's done something wrong.

"You can't give up like that! You were doing so good and then you just rolled over. You have to stay in control, even when you think it's a done deal."

She blinks at him, still a bit too dizzy to process it all.

He sighs, because letting her practice all this on him is such a great strain. "Try it again."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

The city is thrilling beyond words. It's on an island – land surrounded by water so deep they have to take a _bridge_ to get there. And the bridge is amazing. It's not just functional, but beautiful as well. It's all arches and pillars and clean, grey stone.

Flynn takes her by the elbow and pulls her towards the city again when she starts to lean too far over the bridge's barrier wall to look into the water. She's come to the conclusion that Flynn's not really irritated with her. It's more like he's just not amused.

The city bursts with people – people who aren't giants, people who look well dressed and happy, people who don't immediately try to kill her. She grins and waves at a few of them, but they either ignore her or give her an odd look, and then Flynn pulls her hand down and tells her to quit drawing attention to herself.

There are women in the crowd, which she finds fascinating. Up until now, she hadn't seen any in the outside world, and she was beginning to think that she and her mother were rarities. She observes them carefully, comparing their forms and faces to her own, waiting for hints of their vanity, pettiness, and the ruthlessness about which Mother had warned her.

And then there are children. The only child she had ever seen before was herself in the mirror. They're so small! Was she ever that small? Was Flynn?

There's a constricting feeling in her chest and a protective urge washes over her as a swarm of them run screaming past her legs. They're just running around unsupervised where any number of dangers could snatch them up. She wants to send them home, back inside where they'll be safe. Maybe pluck one up and take it with her to ensure it got proper care.

Flynn mutters a curse at them under his breath and pulls her along more quickly. A moment later the children are completely out of sight.

Their first order of business is to get something done about her "God damned hair." He leads her into an alley, then ducks away, only to appear a moment later with a struggling little girl under one arm, one of his hands clapped over her mouth.

"What are you doing?" Rapunzel hisses, running up to try to take the little girl away from him.

He places the child on her feet, but holds her a moment longer to warn her not to scream and wait for her frightened nod. As soon as he releases her, Rapunzel gathers her into a hug, running a hand soothingly over the girl's pigtails.

She looks up to glare at him. "Flynn…"

"What? We need your hair braided, and we need it done without drawing all sorts of attention."

"You could have just asked. I'm sure she would have helped. Now you've scared her."

He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms across his chest.

Rapunzel decides to ignore him and offers the girl a smile before asking politely for assistance.

"And make it fast," Flynn says from the end of the alley, where he's taken position to watch for the guards or more thugs, or the little girl's parents.

"Your boyfriend's grumpy," the girl confides as she uses her fingers like a comb, running her thin hands through knots and tangles. There's a sparkle of excitement in her eyes at the prospect of such great lengths of braiding material – a glimmer that can't be dampened by Flynn's behavior.

"He is," Rapunzel agrees.

"Kid," Flynn drawls, "I am _so_ not your boyfriend."

They end up folding her hair over itself a few times to take up the length and make it thicker. With fingers quick from hours of practice, the girl forms a neat, deceptively simple braid, which barely trails the ground.

Rapunzel scarcely breathes her thanks before Flynn grabs her arm again and leads her away so quickly that her hair is pulled straight from the girl's hands. With a final glance over her shoulder and a wave, Rapunzel sees the girl shrug and dart off to answer the calls of her worried mother, which grow louder and more desperate even as Flynn skids around a corner.

Rapunzel wishes that she could have had a glimpse of the girl's mother. What would she be like? Is she as caring as her own mother? Or has her soul been darkened into cruelty like everyone else in the outside world?

Their next stop is to get her a new dress because the one she's wearing "isn't doing her any favors." She's a bit miffed by this. She made this dress. It looks fine. In fact it looks more than fine. Did he even look at the embroidery?

He glances down at the bit of skirt that she's held up to show him. He looks back to her face unimpressed.

She changes her mind when they slip into the dress shop. There are so many colors and just - just so many choices. Even though it was Flynn's idea for her to get a new dress, he refuses to have any part in the process of picking something out. The shop keeper finally steps in to help her when her levels of distress rise to nearly explosive proportions.

That's how she ends up in a green dress, the same shade as her eyes. It hugs at her skin in completely foreign ways, not tight all over like her usual clothes, but more formative and lifting, as though everywhere it's pulled taut it's _doing _something. The thought that her dress is actively working to change her is a bit unnerving, like she's covered in little, helpful beetles.

It's cut low across her chest, leaving her shoulders entirely bare. It has sleeves, but she wouldn't really call them that. It's just a thin strip draped around her arm – one that slides down even further than her neckline.

The shop keeper beams at her, then wonders off to help someone else, telling Flynn that she's going to "knock his socks off." Rapunzel doubts it. She looks silly and Flynn doesn't wear socks. Feeling amazingly exposed, she wraps her arms around herself and slips out of the dressing room to find Flynn.

"Niiiice," he says, then prods at her arms until they fall away. "Very nice." There's a warmth in his eyes that she's surely imagining.

"This isn't much of a dress," she mutters, running her hands over her stomach to smooth invisible creases. "It's more like half a dress."

He shrugs. "Sometimes less is more. You're going to draw attention. That's good, and it's bad. But I think we can get away with it with the crowds the way they are. Spin for me."

"What?"

"Spin." He makes a twirling gesture with one of his fingers, and she hesitantly turns around, looking away from his face and showing him her back for as short a time as possible.

He frowns as he considers her (mostly from the neck down,) and she decides that she was definitely imagining that gentleness in his eyes. "I'm not getting this for you if you're not going to work it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you need to look comfortable."

"But I'm not comfortable."

"Then fake it. You look good, Blondie, but you shouldn't need me to tell you that. _You_ should be the one telling _me _you look good."

It all relates back to being confident and having other people think exactly what she wants them to think. That seemed to be the theme for the day. But if that's how it works, and people are able to project whatever attitude they want, then why does Flynn act so mean? Is he trying to push her away, or at least keep distance between them? Is this some weird custom that's done in the world outside?

And how much is Flynn faking it? Is it constant? How can she know what's really him seeping though and what's an act? Does it even really matter?

She chews all this over for a moment, then straightens her shoulders and smiles at him.

He nods and smiles back. "Much better." He peers over her shoulder at the distracted shop keeper. "Now grab yourself some shoes and let's get out of here."

It only occurs to her hours later that they were supposed to pay for the dress.

Not only is she in the city for the first time ever, but she's also in the city for the first time ever when there happens to be a festival. Everything is decorated with purple banners and streamers, and there are little stands crowded together to sell trinkets and food. It all smells so delicious that she wants to try everything. Flynn keeps her moving, which might be a good thing because she doesn't know where to start.

They take advantage of the crowds and spend the rest of the day "practicing." He would pick a person and she would approach them, standing with a particular pose, smiling a certain way. The first few times her goal was just to capture their attention. If they blushed and looked away bashfully it was counted as a victory. They then moved on and she started talking to people. She got them to tell her things. She got them to give her things. It was surprisingly easy, and she felt her confidence grow with every new triumph, with every increasing gradation of the pride in Flynn's smile.

He'd given her several helpful hints about things like this. He told her how to bat her eyes and tuck away the loosened strands of hair that fell across her cheek.

He listed off all her good qualities, telling her to emphasize them, and she was in such awe and embarrassment that she was rendered speechless. She kept expecting him to follow up with something to counterbalance it. "You've got great legs, but you're too clumsy to use them," or something. But it never came. His train of thought took a turn and he ended up talking about something else before he got around to listing her faults.

He stood behind her with his hands on her hips to show her how to sway them enticingly - a lesson that she thoroughly enjoyed. His hands were warm and firm and guiding. His breath brushed against her ear, against her neck. He held her even after she mastered it, still leading, still shifting her weight until she felt she was gliding. He held her until she ran her fingers down to cover his own, to squeeze and caress, to ease herself backwards against his chest and look up at him through her eyelashes, to look up and see his eyes darkened.

"You see," he murmured, "you're a natural."

And now she's talking with a boy, probably around her own age, with freckles even more pronounced than her own. He has a dreamy look on his face that leaves his eyes glassy and his lips quirked into a sloppy smile. Flynn called the look "smitten" and she'd seen it on a few people already. She bounces up to plant a quick kiss just at the corner of his mouth, and then blushes while she plucks the loaf of bread from his arms. He doesn't seem to notice her thievery and the only response he manages is a small wave as she skips away.

"I got lunch for you too," she says as she rips the bread in half and hands a chunk to Flynn.

"Hey, this is good stuff!" He takes an enthusiastic bite and continues talking around it. "They only make it for the holiday, you know? They mix the cheese right into the loaf." He holds out the remains of his meal to show her the warm, glossy swirls inside. "Isn't that genius? Why don't they do this every day?"

She grins at him and his renewed good humor before a cheer from the crowd draws her attention towards the beginnings of a puppet show across the square. Brightly colored animals sing out a story in funny voices much to the amusement of a crowd of children. She finds herself just as enraptured by the story as they are, and for a moment Flynn grows quiet, giving her a moment to listen. He eats the rest of his bread without encouraging her to rush. Maybe he's listening to the story too.

The performance draws her in, spinning around her, drowning out the murmur of the crowd and the hot sun on her face. It's the story of a princess, who has been transformed into a swan, and the spell will only break once she finds true love, but the man she meets by the lake is deceived by an imposter to whom he pledges himself forever, throwing the princess into despair. She decides to kill herself rather than live on without love, and as she raises a blade to stab into her broken heart, Flynn curses and yanks her away.

She finds herself crammed into an alcove in yet another alley, as Flynn flattens himself against a wall and pulls her close.

"Guards," he hisses, and her eyes grow wide. The guards want her hair and they'll torture Flynn if they find him. They can't be caught. They can't, they can't, they can't. She hasn't seen the world yet. Flynn hasn't sold his crown. She hasn't set things right within herself. She hasn't set things right with her mother.

She can hear the rhythmic clanking of their armor even over the applause from the square as the patrol marches closer. She presses against Flynn, further into the shadows, and whispers franticly, "What do we do?"

He bites his lip in thought, looking for an escape route only to find that their alley is a dead end. The clanking grows louder and her heart beats faster and then he slings one of her arms around his neck, pulls her close, and kisses her.

For a second she has no idea what to do, and she stares at him, unmoving, with widened eyes until he cracks one eye open to glare at her and squeezes her side a bit more roughly than necessary.

It's an act. She understands that. He doesn't really mean anything by it. It's a means to an end, and it's not like she hasn't kissed him before.

But that doesn't mean she can't enjoy it.

And so she kisses him back, arching against him. His hands roam down to her ass to squeeze her and draw her up flush against him. She knows better than to let him have all the control, so she kisses him more deeply, digging her fingers into his shoulder and his arm to urge him on. It quickly becomes a battle of who can hold the other the tightest.

The guards pause at the entry to their alley, and she is so scared that she trembles and she's immensely relieved that Flynn is there to hold her, to feed her courage, to keep her focused on being brave and controlled. She shifts slightly to ensure his face is hidden. Form the guards' perspective Flynn will be almost completely obscured. She's the one on display. She's the one who has to sell it, so she throws in a moan just for good measure.

Flynn's not the only one who can fake it.

The guards chuckle behind her, and continue on their way. Out of the corner of her eye she catches sight of them, their armor so bright that it's hard to look at them.

After a moment Flynn pulls away and cranes his neck to peer around the wall. He doesn't release her from his arms until he's sure of their retreat, until he's sure her legs won't turn to jelly.

"Good job, Blondie," he breathes.

"I thought the guards wore red," she says, attempting to catch her breath and look composed. That's what her mother always told her.

"No. They haven't done that for a hundred years or so."

"Oh." That seems strange, but she's realizing that her mother has been misinformed about a lot of things. "Flynn?"

"Yeah?"

"How does the story about the princess end?"

"You mean the puppet show? Everybody dies. They might have softened it up for the kids though."

"Oh."

"Yeah. It's not exactly a feel good favorite."

She frowns, wishing that there was something in the outside world that was just happy, and not happiness mixed with confusion. "Are we going to be able to see the floating lanterns tonight?"

"Uh, maybe."

"Really?"

"If we get the deal done fast enough, maybe."

She beams at him. He doesn't meet her eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

They make their way to the club when the sun starts to lower in the sky. Their destination is down by the docks, a part of the city that always smells of fish, where the grey, wooden buildings with peeling paint all seem to lean a bit to the left.

The door isn't easy to discern. It's one of those things where you have to know where it is before you can find it, but Flynn's been around and he knows most of the dirty secrets that are swept away under the beauty of the kingdom.

He holds the door open for Blondie and she bounces inside with a grin before she slips on a more reserved, enticing smile and slows her giddy steps into a kind of waltz. The room before them is bare, just the door to the outside, the door in front of them, and a dusty vase full of long dead flowers in the corner.

He nods to ask if she's ready, and she nods back before he clears his throat, reaches over her shoulder, and knocks out a happy rhythm. A moment later a small window in the door slides open for a partial view of a marred and frowning face.

She's undeterred by such hideousness, which was something that Flynn was worried about. She leans easily towards the door, easing onto her tiptoes as if she can't wait to get closer.

"Hi," she says, an underlying purr to her voice, that sounds so natural that it's unnoticeable unless you know her.

Which Flynn does.

Sorta.

"We were hoping to see your boss."

"What for?" the man growls, but Flynn can see the man cracking already. He can see the way the doorman's eyes hover over the girl's form. He can see the gears turn as the man tries to plan a way to get a piece of the action. The growling is a front just to see if they flinch, and as long as they keep it together, this battle's already won. It's an easy victory, but a victory nonetheless.

She edges forward and whispers, "It's a secret." Then she bites her lip to hold back a giggle and raises one of her shoulders just a bit, as if she's being coy, as if she's trying to hide behind it, secretly showing off how lovely she is.

She's such a champ. Flynn is so freaking proud of her.

The guy behind the door gives her one final appraising glance, aims a sneer at Flynn, and slams the window closed. She jumps and shoots him a skeptical look, which he ignores, and a moment later they hear the distinctive clunking of locks being released.

The door opens and music and murmurs pour out along with the sweet smells of food and cigar smoke. Light washes over them, warm and orange, emanating from lanterns suspended over each table. Despite the dreary state of the building's exterior, the inside is decorated in deep reds and rich wood, with screens of green stained glass to split the space.

The man guarding the entrance locks the door behind them with a menacing thunk and gives Blondie a predatory look before leading them into the depths of the club. She walks with her shoulders thrown back, her head held high, and Flynn's hand against the small of her back. As they pass, conversations pause and eyes follow them, the infamous thief and the pretty girl being led all the way to the back to see the boss.

A gesture from their guide instructs them to pause while the man goes up to a booth and leans to murmur into the ear of a man whose face is obscured. Flynn catches his own name and then some descriptors of Blondie's attributes. There's a brief exchange and then their guide straightens and walks back the way he came.

"Go on," he grunts. "But keep it brief."

"Thanks!" Flynn grins. Blondie offers the man a smile and drags her fingers over his arm as Flynn guides her forward again.

The boss' face comes into view, a broad man, hunched over a smattering of papers and several empty glasses. His head is bald, his eyebrows drawn. He wears a thin mustache, a violently shocking black eye colored a tender purple – which he didn't have the last time Flynn saw him - and his customary hook in the place of his left hand.

Blondie sucks in a breath and stiffens, her smile disappearing completely just as Flynn greets their host. "Hey, Hook! Great to see ya again. How's life?"

The man looks up to give him a bored response, but before he can get the words out, his gaze locks on Blondie, and his expression swings from shock to fear to loathing so fast it leaves Flynn's head spinning.

Blondie's face contorts into a snarl and she _growls_, grabbing for her hair, lunging forward for the throat of his newest business partner. Flynn barely catches her in time. "Whoa!"

The boss surges to his feet, brandishing his hook, and Flynn swings the girl around to put himself between her and the thug. He jerks backwards as the hook waves in front of his face. "You brought that she-devil in here!"

If this girl has ruined his chances of selling that damned crown again, he swears to God…

But losing his temper won't do any good, and he's a bit too worried about staying alive to be angry at the moment. He catches sight of several of Hook's cronies rising from nearby booths to loom menacingly.

He swallows. He needs to keep it together, or this is going to end poorly.

"You two – ah – know each other?"

"That crazy bitch came into The Duckling, tried to rob me, and then started an all out brawl!"

"I'm not crazy! And they _attacked_ me!"

Hook bellows and points angrily to his swollen eye. "Who was attacking who, lady?"

Flynn stares for a moment at Hook's crazed, panicked face, at the venom in Blondie's glare, and he can feel a grin begin to spread, because if you take a step back (past the danger and the way he's clinging to his crumbling dreams, trying to hold them together ) this is funny.

"She give you that?"

"Shut it, Rider."

Blondie snarls and lunges forward again, deciding that it'll be easier to go through Flynn than around him. He holds her back with his shoulder, and braces his feet. The thugs surrounding them seem to come to the same conclusion that Flynn has, and back off, holding back chuckles and watching with amusement as their boss squirms under the menace of a tiny, blonde girl.

And he is squirming. Flynn catches him take a hasty step back during one of the girl's more powerful lunges. He's scared. And Flynn can work with that.

"Sorry," he says, with a shake of his head, "I was going to offer you the deal of the century and make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. But if you're too afraid that the kid's going to beat you up again," he chuckles, "I understand. She's a handful. We wouldn't want you to be embarrassed when you can't handle her in front of all these lovely gentlemen. So you know what? Never mind. We'll just leave and take our business elsewhere. Forget you saw us. Especially her. Don't want you having nightmares. Come on, Blondie."

He turns as if he's going to leave, only to be stopped by Hook's annoyed grunt.

"Sit down, Rider."

"Excellent! I knew we could put all this nastiness behind us." He pulls the girl into the booth with him. Her eyes are still narrowed, her shoulders tensed, poised to strike at any moment. He keeps a hand on her elbow just in case, and he feels her tremble under his fingers. He can practically feel the fear hidden just under her anger. He just hopes it stays hidden.

Hook takes his seat, but continues to eye her warily, tapping his hook against the table.

"I heard a rumor that you found yourself something nice."

"I know. She's cute, isn't she?" He turns a brilliant grin towards Blondie, who looks momentarily confused.

Hook rolls his eyes. "I was talking about something more… regal. Something less inclined to get pissed off and become a harpy."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. But the thing that doesn't make sense to me is why you'd come here. Why not go see Sergei. This is more his kind of thing."

"Ah. Yes. Sad story. It seems that his place was burned to the ground last night. Tragic, really."

"What? How?"

Flynn lets his eyes skip ever so briefly to the girl sitting next to him, who still looks skittish and ready to go on a wild killing spree.

Hook's eyes widen momentarily, before narrowing to slits. "You've got some nerve coming in here, making threats-"

"Whoa, whoa," Flynn says, holds up his hands. "Who's making threats? I'm just here to offer you a deal. We can help each other out. I may or may not have the most splendid piece of headgear in all of Corona, and you may or may not have five hundred grand."

"Half a million?"

"Yep. It's more than fair."

"How about I just take it from you now and kill you?"

"OK, but you have to get past her first." Blondie shifts in her seat and Flynn drapes an arm over her shoulders.

Hook watches them for a moment before leaning back and crossing his arms across his chest. "Someday you're going to meet a sticky end, Rider."

"Then it's a good thing I can make you some money before that happens."

Hook makes a noise that could be a scoff and could be a laugh. "Noon tomorrow. Bring the goods to The Gorge. If it checks out you'll have your money."

"No funny business."

"No. That's your game."

Flynn smirks at him and holds out his hand, which Hook takes begrudgingly. A contract formed by handshake doesn't mean that much, but these little niceties need to be obeyed.

"Well, this has been a blast! See ya tomorrow. Noon. The Gorge. With my money." He points a cocky finger at Hook as he slides Blondie out of the booth with the other hand.

With one last grin, he makes his retreat, guiding the girl along with an arm around her waist.

She leans close to him and whispers, still glancing around nervously, "He attacked me, Flynn. You can't trust him."

"I wasn't planning on it," he murmurs, throwing a smirk at the doorman.

She relaxes slightly against his side. Maybe it's from relief that he's not acting like a total moron, or maybe it's from being released back into the fresh air.

By "fresh" he means "smells like fish," which is a smell he never thought he would prefer over anything else. Somehow it feels cooler, but it's still hot from the midsummer sun, which hasn't quite set yet. It just feels less stifling than inside the club.

"That went well," he says. "Not the way I planned, but – really – that went well. Good job!"

She looks at him like he's crazy or lying to make fun of her. "You think so?"

"Yeah. We got exactly what we wanted, and now they think if they try to pull one over on us, we'll destroy them. We're in great position here."

"We?" She's growing less and less anxious the more he reassures her and the farther they get from the club.

He pretends he didn't hear her and changes the subject. "So your first day out of your tower, you decide to go to the Snuggly Duckling?"

She ducks her head, looking a bit embarrassed. "I was looking for you."

"Oh, well that makes sense."

She smiles up at him, not catching his sarcasm. It's a miracle she didn't wander in front of a firing squad or into a slave auction or something. But then again, getting involved up to her neck in the greatest heist in the kingdom's history also isn't the best situation.

"You know, the lantern thing is about to start. We could still find a good place to watch."

She stops in her tracks and gasps. "Really! That would be so-"

Her excited squeal cuts off as three guards tackle him to the ground.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Flynn struggles, throwing his shoulder into his captors to shake their damned hands off of him. He can walk on his own, thank you very much.

But his resistance is nothing compared to Goldie. She panics and fights so much that the guards have to bind her arms and legs after she knees one of them in the stomach and he collapses. She screams and kicks and bites, and the idea of knocking her out briefly surfaces before one of the guards just throws her over his shoulder to take her away.

Her obvious terror makes that big, white horse restless and anxious. It snorts and prances a few steps to the side.

They're dragged all the way to the prison, then thrown into a cell before the manacles are removed from his hands. The guards leave her were she falls, crumpled and bound in a ball on the cold floor of their cell. It's probably a good call on their part.

As soon as the guards leave, he lets her loose. He lets her loose but she doesn't move other than to curl further in on herself.

Flynn doesn't know what to do about her, so he takes a seat and waits. He waits for her to calm down and he waits for the guards to come back to hang him. He morbidly guesses at which one will happen first.

The sun sets and darkness falls before she moves at all. When she does, her breathing has eased, and she stands to cross to the window, a clandestine hint in her movements, almost as though she's heard someone summoning her outside. She leans her arms against the narrow sill and rests her head against her interlaced fingers, her face pressing against the bars.

He catches the glow of the floating lanterns against her face. Through their constricted view, the prisoners can make out the cloud of light as it sinks into the water, as it lowers after drifting over them from behind. If they were outside, in the open, the view would be spectacular, but as it is, it feels like a mockery, like they are only getting the cast offs.

The girl sees it differently. She sees something glorious. The lights calm her. Her face softens.

Somehow her simple enjoyment calms him as well. He should be furious. He had his dream within his reach, the island, the money, the crown. Now he doesn't have any of it. His dreams have shattered yet again, and this time it took a part of him with them. He has no fight left in him. He failed, and he failed, and then he failed again, and, God, he's so tired of trying and pushing and running.

He's drained. This was it. His one last chance.

And now he's going to die.

He should feel something more: more distress, or self loathing, or self pity. But he doesn't. Because she's getting to see her lights and she's smiling even though the world is crumbling to pieces around her.

He finds himself standing next to her and a bit behind so that he can watch as well. Maybe he'll gain some insight. Maybe he's just stretching his legs.

"What's going to happen to us?" she whispers, not looking away even as the lanterns sink into the dark water and the light fades from her cheeks.

"They'll let you off easy. It's your first offense and you didn't really have anything to do with stealing the crown." He doubts this is true. The guards hate him so much he wouldn't be surprised if they took it out on her. And they found the crown on her person, so they would be unlikely to believe that she wasn't involved. But it wouldn't do her any good to tell her this now.

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about that."

She tilts her head to look up at him. "Why? What will they do to you?"

He quirks the corner of his mouth into some defeated semblance of a grin, and her eyebrows draw more closely together as she straightens in response.

"What?" Her voice is so soft he can barely hear it. Maybe she doesn't want him to answer.

"They're going to hang me."

She stands, too shocked to speak, her lips parted, her eyes wide.

Then she turns, grabs the bars across the window, and pulls with all her might. She pulls and pushes, then tries to bend them to the side.

"Whoa!"

She shoves one arm out the window to the shoulder in an attempt to escape, but her head doesn't fit, so she digs her nails into the mortar between the stones, breaking away only a few dusty pebbles.

He lays his hand against her back in an attempt to soothe her, but she twirls away towards their cell door and strains against the lock with a desperate cry. Her braid gives out, sending loosened hair tumbling down her back as she claws frantically at the pin in the door's hinges. She fights to break loose, tears streaming down her face.

"Hey!" He grabs her shoulders, spinning her around, taking hold of her face in both hands to hold her still. "It's no use."

He rubs her tears away with his thumb, but they immediately reappear when she blinks up at him. He tucks a wild strand of hair behind her ear.

"There's no point."

She doesn't want to believe him. She wants to fight against the world so badly that she'll fight against him too if she has to. The indecision plays out across her face until a sob escapes her and she throws herself forward, hurling her arms tight about his neck. He holds her on instinct, but after a heartbeat he eases into it. He pulls her close and strokes her hair, as her tears dampen his neck.

"Shhh," he murmurs. "Shhh. It's alright. It's alright."

Why is he comforting her? She's been nothing but trouble since the moment he met her. She's a tool, a means to an end. Nothing more.

But tools don't weep for you.

And why is she crying? He's been horrible to her. How can she find it within herself to feel such grief for him, such loss?

She's crying for him. All for him. And it's as though his heart has cracked open, pouring out everything hidden inside. The essence of who he is, all those vital things that keep him thinking and feeling and breathing and running flow out like blood covering his hands.

She cries for him and somehow it makes him feel better and somehow it makes him feel worse. She makes him feel numb, as though she's taking on his pain so he doesn't have to feel it, and she makes the pain more acute, more real. All these terrible, conflicting emotions battle inside his chest in such a vicious whirlwind that he can't keep up with any of it.

He eases onto the stone slab intended to be his bed, cradling her in his lap while she sobs. The stone is chilly against his back, and she is warm in his arms.

She sniffs and presses her lips to his collar bone. It's so gentle it could be an accident, but she raises her head to kiss his neck, his jaw, his mouth. He can taste her tears and feel her desperation. She needs to be closer to him, to hold on to him, to claim him, to never let him go. She feeds on the reassurance in his touch, as if the kiss will hold her together. It feels as though she is breathing life back into his soul, as if she can keep him alive though sheer force of will.

Her touch is a frightened little thing. She feels so fragile in his hands, so sweet and pitiful, and that protective instinct in his gut kicks in – the one that he batters down and ignores every time it pops up.

She pulls away and adjusts her posture into something more aggressive, more commanding, and when she kisses him again there's a new force behind it as she tries to grab control of the situation. Ice runs down his spine as he realizes that she's trying to do exactly what he told her.

She pushes to overpower him, but the movements of her lips are frantic and uncontrolled. He can feel the fear and desperation in the tremble of her hands even as she tries to hide it.

"I can't see the lights," she breathes, her voice a creepy mixture of a seductive purr and a lost tremble. "Show them to me." She kisses him again and he feels sick.

He pulls back, but she maintains the kiss a bit too long, fighting to hold on to him. He doesn't know if it's out of her poorly concealed desperation, or because he taught her not to take no for an answer.

Her lips are moist, her cheeks still glisten in the darkness, and her eyes are so deep and pleading that he finds himself entranced.

"I can't do that to you."

He doesn't know where that came from.

Her face crumples into a mask of all encompassing distress.

"You deserve better than that," he insists even as he mentally screams at himself to stop talking. His last night on earth and he's turning this down? God, what's happened to him? "You want it now, but this is something you'll regret later."

Her eyes brim with tears, and he pulls her closer to lean his forehead against hers.

"Trust me."

She blinks at him, then bows her head in humiliation, and he tucks her into his arms, leaving a kiss against her temple.

He holds her while her cries die away, while her breathing evens and her body slumps. He drapes her hair over her bare shoulders and holds her through the night.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Rapunzel wakes in the grey light of dawn, feeling heavy and stiff. Opening her eyes, she blinks in surprise at the closeness of Flynn's face to her own. His eyes are closed as if asleep, but then again he might very well be awake and listening to her shift. It's hard to tell with him. If she was in his position she wouldn't be able to sleep at all.

She thinks about drawing his attention, but then decides against it. She doesn't know what she would say to him.

_I can't do that to you._

Why couldn't he? He made her feel so good before, and they were both feeling so sad last night. It would have brought them some cheer.

Was he actually unable to do it? Maybe he could only do it when the sun was up, or maybe he had to recharge for a few days because it took so much out of him. Maybe it was some kind of magic that could only happen with the new moon.

Or maybe he was too sad. She knows that when she's very upset sometimes she can't do anything but lie on her bed and wallow. This theory, that it's a problem in his psyche, seems more plausible than the effects of some external influence.

But there's a voice in her head that whispers, one whose treacherous words gnaw at her stomach. _ It's not that he couldn't. It's that he wouldn't._ _You're just making excuses for his rejection. _

Did he really not want her? After spending a few days with her, did he not like her anymore?

_He never liked you. He never wanted you around. He finds your presence annoying, and he thinks you're strange, and you've brought him nothing but trouble._

But there were times when he would smile – really smile – and her heart would melt a little. She feels the same way now as she looks at him, his eyebrows drawn together, his mouth set into a thin line. He looks genuine - genuinely disheartened, but genuine nonetheless. He looks like she should trust him.

But…

_But…_

She can't bring herself to do it. Not completely, anyway.

Something about him has changed. He's different now and that difference does not inspire confidence. It's like he's given up. It's like he's already dead.

The thought of doubting him, of abandoning him at such a critical point makes her feel ill, but he's got her confused. He's got her turned around. If she believes him now, that means that she shouldn't have believed him earlier. Right? He was lying before or he's lying now, and it's truly disconcerting that she can't figure out which is the truth.

It's even more disconcerting to realize that she may have made a horrible mistake.

She has no idea what's happening around her, or even what's happening within her mind. He's left her feeling so helpless that she wants to scream. Scream at him. Scream at herself for being weak. Scream and scream and cry because nothing makes sense.

_He was using you. He was just using you to sell the crown._

No. She was helping him. That's what she does. She helps people. She helps Mother stay young and she helps Flynn find his dream.

_He left you last time._

Well… yes…

_He didn't want you last night because he couldn't leave you when he was done. He's stuck in this prison and has nowhere to go._

She's going crazy. She's on the brink of madness and Flynn's pushing her over without a care. The hook-handed man had seen it. He'd called her crazy. The guards had seen it. Flynn could probably see it too. And now she's arguing with a voice in her head.

_He left you before and he'll leave you again._

She squeezes her eyes shut and presses her face into his shoulder to hold back tears and block out the voice. He's going to die and leave her again and she can't bear it. She can't. She's so irrationally angry at him for it that it hurts. He's going to leave her more lost than she was before.

As frustrating as he may be and as much as he has her doubting everything, he's her only friend. He may be awful, but he's better than the hook-handed man or the thugs or the guards or Maximus.

The world outside is cruel, and Flynn is the outside world personified. She can stand with him until the end. She can trust him and love him despite his faults. Or she can abandon him. She can bury her feelings for him and watch him die, then return to her tower to hide and never step foot outside again.

Those are her options.

Trust him now or don't.

The outside world or her tower.

Flynn's eyes open and his head raises so easily that it confirms his lack of sleep. His sharp eyes, filled with concern, stare out their cell door and through part of the wall, as if he can see something she cannot.

A moment later she hears it: the clunking march of approaching guards. She pulls closer to his chest, her hand grabbing his vest, digging her nails into the leather, clinging to him for dear life. She won't let them take him away. She won't.

His arm tightens about her waist.

Five guards come to a halt in front of their cell. Their faces are serious, devoid of emotion. Part of her is glad. At least they aren't gleeful. At least they're not pitying.

"It's time," the closest guard says.

Flynn nods and pats Rapunzel's hip to get her to stand. Once on their feet, he finally looks down at her. It's a look that gives her chills. He covers her hand with his own and pries it from his vest.

"It's alright," he murmurs. "Just stay calm and don't do anything drastic."

He's given up. How could he? There are only five guards. It's not like they have anything to lose.

Her lips part to argue, but he shoots her a glare filled with enough of his old fire in it that it silences her. He must have a plan that he's not telling her again. She hopes he does, because surrendering like this just isn't an option.

The door swings open and Flynn squeezes her arm one last time before positioning his hands behind his back. "Tell them everything and they'll let you go."

The terror builds in her chest as the guards fix manacles to Flynn's hands. It builds more when he shoots her a cocky smile. It's so obviously fake. Then it falls completely when the guards fit her with her own pair of shackles.

"Wait. Where are you taking her?"

The guards only answer him with blank looks, but it seems this is the only answer Flynn needs. His gaze darts to her face, and he swallows thickly before two of the guards shove him out of the cell.

Rapunzel follows without complaint. She just needs to do what Flynn says and they will both be OK.

The guards are more gentle with her than they are with Flynn. Instead of dragging her along, one guard has a hand planted firmly on her shoulder as they walk down the endless maze of hallways.

The restraints on her wrists are so big that she has to keep her hands in fists to keep them from sliding off. She does it because she agreed to go along with him, with his plan, with everything. She's doing it, but she doesn't like it, and part of her is still contemplating ignoring him and fighting for it.

They march for several minutes in relative silence, as Flynn continues to shoot worried glances in her direction whenever he thinks she isn't looking. Honestly, he's not doing anything for her anxiety levels. Why is he suddenly so concerned? What is he not telling her?

They step out into a courtyard, and she has to blink to adjust her eyes to the light even though the sun hasn't risen enough to be seen over the high walls. The courtyard looks as if the color had been sucked out of it, leaving everything a dull shade of grey. Even the footsteps of the guards sound muffled, as if out of respect for the dead. The only feature is the high gallows and the addition of even more guards.

The utter hopelessness of their situation nearly sends her into a fit of hysterical crying, but she holds it in, biting her lip and trembling. She has to stay strong, stay calm.

One of the guards takes out a sheet of paper and reads a long list of Flynn's many crimes. When they're all strung together they just sound ridiculous. He must have been stealing for a very long time. She watches his face, focusing solely on him so she doesn't have to think of anything else. He blinks during some of the charges, as if he can't remember them. The corner of his mouth quirks for a few choice crimes, still holding some glimmer of pride for his accomplishments.

The world around them fades, and there's just him, that hint of a smirk, the scuffing of his boots, and her anger. She hates the guards, and she hates the thugs, and she hates that stupid crown, and that stupid horse. She hates Flynn and she hates herself.

If she's angry, she's not afraid.

His head lifts as the list winds down, his eyes rising from the spot on the ground he was surveying with such interest. He turns to pin her with his gaze, and her plan to hate him forever - her plan not to cry - falters. Then it cracks. Then it dies.

He leans forward before the guards can rip him away and whispers, "Don't watch."

Then he's kissing her. And she's kissing him. And it's not like all those other times his lips have been pressed to hers. This time… she breaks.

The guards yank him away, and she cries out and lunges forward, but there are hands holding her, and Flynn's walking away, and he's not looking back.

She's so numb with horror that she can't feel the tears streaming down her face, she can't hear the guard holding her as he tries to calm her. All she knows is that he's climbing the stairs, and they're fitting a noose about his neck, and pulling it tight, and measuring out a length of slack. One guard takes hold of the level to drop the floor and she turns away.

Flynn told her not to look.

He told her everything would be alright.

He's a liar. He's a liar. He's a liar.

She screams as she hears the gallows thunk, as Flynn falls, as she hears the snap of the rope and the snap of his neck.

She screams and it's the last thing Flynn hears.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

She doesn't know how long they all stand there. Long enough to make sure he's dead. Long enough for her eyes to burn.

The guard holding her finally relaxes his grip and she looks up, immediately wishing she hadn't. It's as though the only movement in the courtyard is the slight rotation of Flynn's body, which is otherwise unnaturally still and limp and heavy, weirdly suspended, like it's floating in water.

She can't remember how to breathe.

A guard on the platform pulls on a rope, unraveling a knot, and Flynn's body falls against the ground in a broken heap, the rope slithering down after him. It's like the times she's dropped a sack of flour on the floor, complete with the muffled thud and the feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach at the finality of it all, at knowing that there's no fixing it.

No one moves towards his body, to straighten him out, to give him some dignity, to show him respect, to fix him and bring him back.

Something between a sob and a scream rips from her throat, and her shackles clunk to the ground as she slips loose. She elbows the man holding her so hard in the stomach that he doubles over on himself. And free, she races forward, purposefully ignoring all Flynn's talk of staying calm, of not causing a scene. Look where that got them.

Spots dance before her eyes and her legs give out, and she skids the last few feet on her knees. With a heave that leaves her dizzy, she rolls his broken form onto its back, pulling his head into her lap.

"Flynn? _Flynn_? No. No, no, no," she pleads. "Stay with me."

His face is slack and lifeless, and she finds herself caressing it, hoping to ease life back into his cheeks, hoping that if she presses against his skin he'll get annoyed and swat her away.

But he remains motionless, and that weight in her stomach pulls even deeper.

The guards hold off recapturing her. They surround the gallows that loom over her, but they give her a moment out of pity. She's just a little girl who doesn't know how to cope. She doesn't want their sympathy, their condescension, and the thought fills her with renewed rage, but she forces it back. She ignores them. They're giving her a moment, and despite their motivations, that's what she wants.

She grabs a stone and smashes it against his shackles. They're so old and rusted that it only takes one good crack for the brittle metal to crumble.

She pulls on the tight knot at the back of his neck, the rope coarse and wiry against her hands. Once loose, she slides it from his form and tosses it away, revolted.

There are marks on his neck, deep and red and angry, where the rope bit into him. She can pinpoint the spot where his spine snapped. There's a kink there where his neck is bent and twisted sickeningly to the side.

She squeezes her eyes closed, unable to look, and bends over him to press her forehead against his.

He can't be dead.

He can't.

She sniffs and whimpers against his skin. "I can't let you die."

She can't let him die, because he can't be dead already. It' s not possible. She can't believe it.

Before she can rethink, she snatches up her hair and wraps it twice around his neck. With his injuries covered he looks like he could be sleeping with his head cocked, but the image is marred by the fact that it looks like he's traded one noose for another, and she looks away, pressing her forehead back to his as bile rises in her throat. She grips his vest, tangling her fingers through the golden strands to bring the magic close to his heart, trying to grab it and shove it into his chest.

Taking a deep, shuddering a breath, throwing caution to the wind, she begins to sing.

"_Flower gleam and glow. Let your power shine."_

Light grows around them. She can see it even through closed eyes. She can feel the tingle and the heat along her scalp, across her skin where her hair brushes against her. She can feel her energy drain faster than it ever has before. Her fingers and toes grow numb and her face pales.

Gasps and shocked murmurs whisper around her and the guards take a step back. She doesn't look at them. She pushes them and their newfound knowledge of her secret from her mind and devotes herself to Flynn.

She's never done anything like this before. Nothing even comes close. She has no idea if it will work, and she fears that her self doubt will affect her results.

"_Make the clock reverse. Bring back what once was mine."_

She's shaking so badly that it's a struggle to keep her tone even, to sing it perfectly. She fights her voice from wavering and she presses forward to stay in time.

Singing is a hundred times more difficult than it's ever been before. She has trouble forming the words, creating the healing power. It's almost as if Flynn's body won't let it inside. He is a sea wall against the ocean of her magic, which deepens and courses and crashes against him. The more power she sends to him that he doesn't take, the more it builds up between them, swirling in agitation, building in pressure. It feels as if at any moment she will burst her way through and the magic will rush in and flow over him, or it will explode and rebound back onto her, killing her and everyone else.

"_Heal what has been hurt. Change the fates' design."_

It's less of a blast and more of a firm push as her magic finally seeps in. It's not as dramatic as she was expecting, but it's enough to steal her breath anyway. She almost chokes on her song. The light around them intensifies and a ringing grows in her ears from the magic in the air, from her fatigue. She rests her head more heavily against his.

The magic spreads into his body, warming him to the bone, filling him with sunlight. His head rolls gently in her lap as his neck eases back into alignment, as all the torn muscles and veins stitch themselves back together, as the marks on his neck fade.

"_Save what has been lost. Bring back what once was mine."_

His injuries heal, but his heart does not start beating. His lungs don't fill with air. There are no sparks in his soul, no questions or plans or emotions in his mind. She fears that she can heal his body, but she cannot create life. She can blow on a dying ember, but she can't make fire from nothing. That is a magic beyond her control. She's helpless and inadequate, despite how much she wants it, needs it, despite how much she pleads and wishes and fights.

She contorts her face in concentration and frustration, and she prays as hard as she can, as if she can force her thoughts into his brain, force her need for him to live into his heart.

Tears stream down her face and she presses a kiss to his temple.

"_What once was mine."_

The words to her song make less sense than ever. It's just a bunch of rhyming nonsense. He wasn't ever hers. Not when they first met, not when they were trying to sell the crown, not now. She was so stupid to think otherwise. She was stupid to care for him, and she's stupid for continuing to do so.

The light around them fades with her voice, leaving the courtyard in the eerie silence of death and defeat.

She couldn't help him. He's dead. Somehow she feels as though it's all her fault.

"Flynn," she sniffs.

Her shoulders slump in exhaustion, and she strokes his cheek with shaking fingers.

And then he groans, "R-Rapunzel?" and she snaps back and stares at him in shock as his eyebrows pull together, as his eyes flutter. He swallows once, checking that he still can, and cringes at the raw feeling of freshly healed muscle.

"_Flynn_!" She can't believe it. This is something she's imagining. She wanted it so badly, but now she doesn't even know how to respond.

His eyes slowly focus on her and – to her dismay - fill with sorrow. "They got you too," he murmurs.

She has no idea what he's talking about, but _he's alive_! She lets out a choked sob and nearly faints in relief, beaming down at him as much as she can through her tears.

He lifts a hand to her face and she covers it with her own, leaning into him, reveling in the calloused feel of his fingers, in the warmth of his skin. She lets the feeling of his touch and the feeling in her heart burn into her memory, not trusting her sanity that this is actually happening, not trusting him not to die again, not trusting the moment to last.

And it doesn't.

A soon as Flynn moves, the guards start shouting. She only makes out bits, words like "demon" and "witch," which she's never heard before, but the overall tone of fear is palpable.

The guards grab her, ripping her violently away from Flynn, dragging her backwards, tying her tighter and more securely than before.

"Flynn!"

The hair still wrapped around his neck chokes him and yanks at her scalp as they're separated. He wriggles free and tries to stand, to go to her, but he stumbles and is immediately tackled to the ground by more guards.

"Rapunzel!"

She tries to yell for him again, but the guards shove a gag in her mouth to stop her incantations and witchcraft. One guard quickly gathers her hair, a look of fear and disgust on his face. He handles it like it's poisonous, touching it gingerly and holding it far from his face.

She struggles until she sees them force Flynn to his feet, until she sees his face contort with rage as he throws off one guard and is attacked by two more. They haul him forward, and she realizes they're being taken in the same direction, back into the labyrinthine hallways, and away from the gallows and the courtyard where Flynn died.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

He's alive! He's alive and they didn't immediately hang him again, which she realizes in retrospect was a distinct possibility.

She's so happy she could skip, but the guards are holding her far too tightly for that.

As they continue their march down the corridors, a man with spectacles joins their procession to converse in hushed voices with one of the guards. The new comer is tall and thin. He's dressed smartly, with neat, dark hair and tightly pursed lips. His spectacles catch the light every now and again, a flash of light in the dimness. He's obviously not one of the guards, who defer to him, and Rapunzel assumes that he must be someone important.

She makes out very little of their discussion. But she catches someone refer to him as "doctor." While they speak, the guard keeps turning to shoot wary glances at her over his shoulder. The doctor glances back at her too, but his gaze is more appraising – curious, but not overly so. He looks at her as if he's forgotten what color her eyes are, or he's checking to see if she has freckles.

She meets their eyes without embarrassment, and although the guard looks away quickly, the doctor matches her gaze easily, only looking away when the guard asks him another question.

Instead of bringing them to a cell, they are ushered into a room that looks well used but organized. Broad counters line the walls below shelves full of jars with liquids and powders and insects. There are little wooden boxes and a wide array of shining instruments, whose purpose she can't even guess.

The guards force her into a chair and tie her securely, and she's relieved to see them bring Flynn in after her, chaining him to a chair across the room. She wants to be able to see him and know that he's alive, he's well, if a bit frazzled. If she had it her way, she would also be able to touch him.

He frowns and pulls at his restraints as soon as the guards step back. It occurs to her that he's spent a lot of time tied to chairs recently, but the thought is cut off as the doctor drops a thin, silver chain around her neck. He doesn't bother to get it under her hair, and it catches and pulls in an odd kind of way. Lowering her chin to her chest, she can see the heavy pendant resting against her breast. It's shaped like a plus sign with each of the arms belling out, decorated with twisting vines.

It's really quite lovely, actually.

She looks up at the doctor with a question in her eyes, and he absently informs her. "That will keep you from using magic."

Really? That's fascinating. She looks down at it again, trying to inspect it more closely. How does it work? _Does_ it work? She wants to test it, but she's still gagged, and she probably shouldn't do her magic in front of people anymore. It seems to scare them. Besides, she doesn't know how it keeps her from using her power. It might be painful or even dangerous.

The doctor sends everyone away except the guard he spoke with earlier, and that exception is only allowed because the man puts up a fuss. Once he's begrudgingly permitted to stay, he stands back, crosses his arms over his chest, and stares accusingly at his prisoners, as if expecting them to burst out of their restraints, grow fangs, and fly at him.

The doctor, however, seems completely at ease. He ignores both Rapunzel and the guard so thoroughly that he may have forgotten they were there. He lights a candle and holds it in front of Flynn's eyes, moving it from side to side, watching for Flynn's reaction, which is to wince and lean backwards as much as he's able.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing," the doctor says dismissively. "How are you feeling, Mr. Rider?"

"Peachy," Flynn snips. "But there's this weird thing, Doc. I can't seem to move my arms."

"Do you feel dizzy? Tired?"

"Why?" he growls.

The doctor doesn't answer, instead putting aside his light and moving to feel all the joints in Flynn's neck. This is something that Flynn obviously does not appreciate.

"Do you feel irrationally angry?"

"No, I think my anger's pretty rational."

"Do you have a craving to devour human flesh?"

"What? No! What the hell's going on? And _what_ are you doing now?"

"I need to listen to your heart and lungs. Please remain still."

Flynn seems to like having his vest and shirt opened for the doctor to press a hearing trumpet to his chest even less than he liked having his spine inspected.

Rapunzel finds the ear trumpet intriguing. What was he listening for? Do people's hearts sound that much different from one another?

"What do you remember about your hanging, Mr. Rider?"

"That it God damned hurt?"

"And then?"

"What do you mean, 'and then?' Then I must have blacked out. And I saw this bright light, and the next thing I know I'm on the ground and she's there looking down at me. I assume you just botched it."

The doctor straightens, picks up a notebook, and begins to write while he talks. "On the contrary, it seems your friend is a necromancer."

Flynn blinks at him. "A what now?"

"You died, Mr. Rider. She brought you back. And in other good news, it seems that you are not a corpse possessed by a demon. Congratulations."

_Necromancer_. That's a strange word. She supposes that Flynn's injury was centered on his neck, and she did care for it, and maybe that could be considered romance in some odd sense. She does consider his neck to be attractive.

_Necromancer_. Neat.

Flynn stares at him. He glances at Rapunzel. Then he looks back up at the doctor in disbelief. "Wait a second-"

"I will need to do several more examinations of you before I allow the guards to carry out your sentence again. You look pale. Are you sure you're not dizzy?"

"…Uh…"

"Now see here," the guard barks before Flynn has a chance to figure out if he's dizzy or not, "How long are these examinations going to take?"

The doctor shrugs. "A week. Maybe two."

"We've been trying to bring him to justice for _years_!"

"Then you can wait another few weeks," he says. There's a note of finality in his voice that makes the guard stop arguing. He snaps his mouth shut and glares.

The doctor doesn't seem to notice or care as he turns his attention back to Rapunzel.

He removes her gag to let it hang beneath her chin, and she works her lips together, which have grown cottony and cramped. He looks her in the eye and there's something eerie about it. It's the look of someone who doesn't care about her in the slightest, the look of someone without a soul. He smiles at her and the impression only gets worse.

"What's your name?" he asks.

She pulls herself straight and masks the fear in her voice with her pride in her name. "Rapunzel."

"And your family name?"

"My what?"

"What is your father's name?"

Her strong front slips a bit as a crease appears across her forehead. "I- don't know. Mother doesn't like to talk about him."

Mother told her that when she was a baby, her father grew tired of their life of poverty. He hired a gang of bandits, and they came in the night to steal her hair, to ruin her life, and become rich. But Mother managed to rescue her just in time and flee with her into the woods.

That's why her secret must be kept hidden from _everyone_.

A few times, Mother returned to the tower in tears, she would tell this story as proof that they can't trust anyone. No matter how well you think you know someone, he will still stab you in the back if he gets a chance. He will break your heart and betray you.

Rapunzel supposes that this lesson didn't sink in as well as Mother had hoped.

"How many people have you brought back from the dead?"

"What? None. I mean, just Flynn."

Across the room, Flynn's eyes widen, and she offers him a hesitant smile, which just seems to confuse him more.

"This is the first time you've done this?"

"No. I've done it before for small injuries and-"

She cuts herself off, realizing that this is exactly the sort of information she shouldn't be handing out. The offer of eternal youth is far too tempting.

"And?"

"Nothing. Small injuries. That's it."

He stares at her a moment with an expression she can't read. "It's important that you answer me truthfully." His voice is cold and crisp, like a knife being unsheathed. "Do you understand?"

She nods.

Flynn taught her to be deceitful and now her test has come.

"Because you won't like what I'll have to do to you if you are not forthcoming."

She has to force herself to swallow.

"Now," he continues. "What else can you do?"

"Nothing."

He sighs and closes his eyes, and for a moment she thinks he might not believe her, he might follow through on his threat.

Instead he changes tracks. "Did your mother teach you that song?"

"Yes."

"Can she do magic like you?"

"N-no. She just knows the song."

"And how long has she been singing it to you?"

"I don't know. Forever?"

"Did she teach you any other songs?"

"Of course."

"Tell me about them."

"Umm, well, one's about a spider and it- it has hand gestures." She strains at her binds, but she's unable to demonstrate the movement of her thumb to opposite forefinger. "And there's one about how Mother is always correct. And one about how you should stop crying and go to sleep. And one where a girl burned her dinner and died of starvation-"

"But no other songs that do magic."

"Oh! No. Nothing like that."

"The song that makes your hair glow, how did it go again?"

She falls silent once more, giving him a look of utter skepticism. No. There's no way she's going to teach him the incantation.

"_Hour gleam and glow,_" he prompts._ "Let your power shine_."

A familiar tickle crawls through the roots of her hair, and she has the swooping sensation of standing too quickly, and she curses the reflexive way her hair responds. She fights it, but there's no use. The only reason she's not glowing this instant is because he doesn't have the words or the melody quite right, for which she is relieved beyond words.

Then again, maybe it's the medallion she's wearing. When she gets out of this, she may start wearing it constantly.

There were a few times when she was angry with her mother. She acted petulantly, refusing to sing for her and throwing herself on her bed in a huff. Her mother took it anyway, grabbing a length of hair from the floor and singing for herself while Rapunzel screamed at her to stop.

It left her feeling so amazingly helpless, a vicious reminder that she didn't have control over anything, even her own body. She wrapped herself in her own guilt and self loathing, knowing that Mother was right, that Rapunzel brought the feelings of violation and fear onto herself. She should never deny her mother something so basic, no matter how upset she is. Such actions are just childish. It reminded her that her mother allowed her to sing only out of kindness, only because she was humoring her daughter, and asking permission was more a gesture of affection than an actual request.

But this is different. It's one thing to take something from someone who owes you, like those few times that Mother did it. But she doesn't owe this man anything. He hasn't cared for her and protected her. This man doesn't love her. He just wants to use her. He's just being selfish.

"_Find what has been lost. Bring back what once was fine."_

"You've got the tune wrong," the guard grumbles, pretending that he's not interested. But she can tell that he's hanging on every word. "It was more like, '_Da dada dadum. Da dada dado._'"

The doctor turns to look over his shoulder, pinning the other man with that same look of polite disinterest. "You sure?"

The guard pauses, second guessing himself. "Pretty sure. It sounds better that way. And then it's like, '_Heal what has been hurt, and then change Fate's design._'"

"_Let the clock reverse._"

"_Bring back what once was mine_," they finish together. The swirl of magic grows inside her, and she holds it down the same way she holds down being sick.

The guard looks briefly pleased with himself, before he scowls again and shakes his head. "Who even cares how the stupid song goes? Just prove she's a witch so we can take care of her."

The doctor rolls his eyes, completely ignoring Flynn's outburst to "Hold on a second" and "You can't do that."

"Of course she's a witch. That much is obvious. We saw it with our own eyes. That's not the issue here."

"Then what is the issue?"

"Whether or not she can do it again."

Rapunzel's heart sinks with dread, her pulse quickening in her veins.

"Imagine the possibilities," he says, and for the first time a spark glints in his eyes. "You could have an army that never dies. An army whose wounds heal so they can fight again. Imagine a kingdom of immortals. And illnesses!" he spins on Rapunzel and the crazed excitement evident in his eyes is so shocking that she jumps. "You can heal those too, can't you? That's what you wouldn't say earlier. You can heal the sick and injured." He blinks as a thought occurs to him and pieces fall into place in his mind. "You could keep someone young forever."

She tries to keep the terror off her face. She tries to keep him from seeing the truth. She tries because her life depends on it.

She tries and fails and a grin spreads across his face.

"Imagine," he murmurs. "Our kingdom will live forever. With this power we can conquer the world."

Rapunzel is frozen in fear, cold dripping through her bones, heavy and bleak.

"You're fucking insane," Flynn breathes.

"Really," the guard says, clearing his throat to hide his discomfort. "This is preposterous."

"Is it? If you died, or one of your men… if the king died, and you could bring them back, would you really turn you back on that power? Would you throw away the lives of people under your protection just because you're too afraid to look beyond your superstitions?"

The guard stares at him, unable to form words. Then his gaze slides to Rapunzel, a mere slip of a girl with terror growing in her eyes. Slowly and uncertainly, he nods his head.

"Good! Now," the doctor says, turning back to her, "show us how that song goes."

No.

She can't. There's no way she can let this happen, no way she can let him use her power. Maybe he'll torture her, like he threatened he would, like Mother warned, with thumbscrews and spikes, dunking her in water and breaking her fingers. It doesn't matter. She won't allow him to use her. She'll never stop fighting.

She'll die first.

She lifts her chin in defiance, her voice firm and bold. "No. Never."

He straightens, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning his head to one side and narrowing his eyes in contemplation. He nods slowly, as he comes to a decision.

She glares at him, fortifying herself while images of flaming hot pokers charring her skin ripple through her mind. She tries to imagine the worst, but he still catches her completely unprepared.

"Captain," he says, "kill Rider again."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

"No!" She lunges forward, pulling at her bonds, yanking her hair, twisting her wrists in their shackles in a frantic attempt to pull herself free. "You can't! Please!"

The guard looks surprised as well, but only hesitates a moment, recovering quickly to pull a knife from his belt.

"No!" she screams.

Flynn arches back in his chair, bracing his feet against the floor to try to push himself away. "Shit! Wait a second. We can talk this out."

The guard advances, grabbing him by the hair and yanking his head back to expose the column of his throat, showing the frantic ripple of his pulse and the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallows. His brown eyes widen in terror as the knife is pressed to his throat.

The guard's frown deepens, whether from his disgust for Flynn or his disapproval of the doctor's methods, it's hard to tell. It doesn't matter anyway.

They're going to kill him. He's going to leave her again.

And then she'll have to make the choice between saving him and saving herself from a life of servitude.

Somehow, it's not really a choice.

"Stop!" she cries. "Stop. I'll do it."

The guard halts his movements and Flynn freezes, holding his breath in anticipation, holding his breath so the knife doesn't nick him.

"I'll show you. Just don't hurt him."

There's something defeated in the guard's eyes as they meet hers, as if he knew she would do this, but had hoped to be wrong. He pulls back and sheathes his knife, dropping Flynn's head, which rises slowly to look at her. She can't handle the mess of emotions carved across his face and turns away to address the doctor.

"I'll show you," she murmurs.

"Excellent!"

It's not really a choice. If they kill him, she can't let him stay dead. She can't sacrifice him to save herself. To bring him back she'll have to sing and they'll learn the song anyway. It's better to just tell them now.

Hot coals of anger begin to burn in her stomach as she fights back scorching tears. If they hadn't brought Flynn into this, she could have gotten away with it. He's her weakness and everyone knows it, and she despises him for that.

She despises herself for being so obvious, for letting herself have a weakness, for getting so attached to him despite how poorly he's treated her. They're to the point now where his very existence is doing her harm.

Maybe she should let them kill him and free herself from attachment.

No. The very thought makes bile churn horribly inside her.

She can't let Flynn die, but she can't let them use her hair. Her magic has to die with her.

And idea hits her like a slap in the face, and she blinks twice in surprise.

It's perfect. Tragic and heroic. And the consequences… she couldn't fathom, but it wouldn't matter. She would end this on her own terms.

But could she do it?

Fear and excitement grip her insides and she takes a shaking breath as her gaze darts to the guard's knife then quickly away.

"I need my hands," she says.

_Be strong. Be confident. You have to believe it for them to believe it._

"What?" The doctor looks up from a notebook he is preparing for dictation.

"The song is only part of the magic. I need my hands for it to work."

The doctor considers her for a moment, then gives the guard a dismissive gesture and turns back to his notes.

Her heart races and she controls her breathing in hopes that it will go unnoticed.

With a fumble and clink of keys, the guard unclasps her hands. He gives her a skeptical look, suspecting her deception, then draws her hands around to her front before locking them back together.

It's not ideal, but it'll do.

And now he's within reach.

She pulls her hair in front of her nervously, and combs her fingers through it. The guard stiffens beside her, but she closes her eyes and ignores him, trying to remain calm and lose herself in the texture of her hair.

"Alright, Rapunzel," the doctor says, his voice laced with excitement. "Whenever you're ready."

She reaches up to pull the medallion from her neck, only to be assisted by the guard when it snags around her ear. He takes it from her gently, then wraps the chain once around his wrist. She mumbles her thanks and gathers her hair again, sure to catch every last strand.

Her hands shake and she suddenly feels like sobbing hysterically. This is far too much for her. She's just a girl. It's only her third day out of her tower. She wishes she were back there with all her heart.

The doctor clears his throat to bring her back to the moment.

_Be brave._

"_Flower gleam and glow,_" she sings. "_Let your power shine."_ A glow lights her face as the magic flows through her, up from her heart, out to the tips of her hair. It runs through her hands, warm and soft and safe. It's a homecoming. It's a curse.

"_Make the clock reverse. Bring back what once was mine._"

The doctor scribbles down her words with a faint scratching noise, biting his lower lip as his eyes dart back and forth across his page. The guard's attention follows the magic, down around her feet to loop and swirl across the floor.

They're not paying attention. No one's watching her but Flynn, who looks into her eyes as though every last thing in his life has at last clicked into place and the epiphany has left him shattered beyond repair.

She knows the feeling.

And the look in his eyes drives her to act, fisting her hair in one hand, snatching the guard's knife with the other, and slicing, tearing through the magic, ripping through her hair.

The hacked ends smoke and the magic fizzles and dies. She watches in horror as death runs down her hair's length, as the bright color turns like fallen leaves rolling in the wind.

"No!" the doctor screams. He flies to his feet so quickly that his chair topples over. His face contorts in outrage and misery. "What have you done?"

The hair is dead now. It's revolting – or maybe her disgust should be directed inward, towards herself. What was she _thinking_? Oh no. What has she _done_? It's like a great serpent has shed its skin, to lie lifeless and forgotten on the floor. It's not even shining now. It's taken on a flat, matted texture. It doesn't feel soft and silky in her hand, and she drops her hold in disgust, letting it flop to the floor.

She drops the knife next, tossing it away to clatter somewhere.

She feels dizzy and sick. Everything seems muffled and fuzzy.

She takes several deep breaths, unable to move her eyes from the singed tips of hair that have settled into her lap. It hasn't sunk in that this is her hair now – dark and waist length and ragged. She's not sure it ever will.

It's just so _brown_.

"You… Little…" The doctor stomps forward as though he might slap her, as though he might strangle her with his bare hands. She's too numb to care. And suddenly the guard is in front of her, holding the doctor back with one firm hand and staring at her as if she's on fire, as if he's seen a ghost, as if she just cut off her magic glowing hair.

"Look," he whispers.

The doctor scowls at him, then tries to throw him off, but the guard holds firm and ends up shouting, "Damn it! _Look at her_!"

The doctor stops and looks, and a trickle of something like recognition crosses his face.

The first emotion to make its reappearance through the clouds that fog her mind is self consciousness. Why are they looking at her like that? It's a stupid question, because after what she just did, it would be strange if they weren't staring at her. But there's something not quite right about their response. Their shock has the wrong flavor.

She hunches in on herself, and instinctively tugs on her hair, only to remember that it's no longer comforting and familiar.

"Oh my God," Flynn says. "She's the lost princess."

The guard nods stupidly, unable to drag his eyes away.

"It can't be," the doctor breathes.

"Don't be stupid. She's the spitting image of the Queen! It must have been that flower," the guard gasps. "She's not a witch. She just had flower-sun magic in her hair!"

"It's can't be."

"Look at her." He runs a hand across his face. "Oh God, we nearly killed the princess."

They both look like they're about to be sick, and their situation is not helped at all when Flynn starts laughing.

"Ha! You guys are in so much trouble."

"We are," the guard groans.

"You throw her in prison, nearly hang her for the theft of her own crown, nearly light her on fire because the queen drank some magic tea."

"Shut up, Rider. Or do I have to mention whatever disgusting activities you were planning?"

This gets Flynn to cringe and shut up.

"We can fix this," the doctor breathes. "Only you and I know."

"I know," Flynn says to himself.

"A half hour ago you wanted to execute both of them. If we hurry, no one will ever know about this."

The guard's eyebrows lower in confusion. "Now, wait a second. You're not suggesting we," his voice drops to a rumbling whisper, "we murder the princess to keep her quiet."

"Why not?" the doctor whispers back. "We say she's a witch and we took care of her. If she hadn't- We wouldn't have even- We didn't know."

Drawing himself up to his full height, the guard shifts to stand more firmly in front of Rapunzel. "I will not allow you to harm her highness."

"We kill her, or the king kills us," the doctor hisses.

"Then," the guard says slowly, "I guess we're going to die."

The doctor's façade slips completely, leaving his face crumpled and unattractive.

It's the first time in the outside world that someone has moved to protect her, and she has no idea how to feel about it. She doesn't know how to feel about anything.

She's the princess?

It can't be. She's not a princess. She's Rapunzel. From her tower. She lives with her mother, who is not a queen. She has long blonde hair that-

She can't be the princess. Flynn told her briefly that the princess was kidnapped almost eighteen years ago and that yesterday was her birthday…

She's saved from further thought on the subject by a series of rapid knocks against the door, which is thrown open to admit four guards and a man she recognizes from the mural in town.

The king.

"I heard there was some excitement this morning at Flynn Rider's-"

His voice cuts off as his eyes sweep the room, taking in the guard's aggressive stance and the doctor's defeated form, the masses of hair spread across the floor, and the frightened girl bound to a chair. A girl with his wife's warm hair, and his wife's thin frame, and his wife's green eyes, wide and full of fear and defiance.

He stares.

His lips part as though to speak, but the words don't come, because this girl looks like his daughter, and he hasn't seen his daughter in eighteen years. He should run to her, embrace her, protect her, because she looks so fragile, because she looks like his wife, because she's his blood – he can feel it like a song that expands his heart.

For a moment he's frozen because she's a stranger, and how do you even go about speaking in a situation like this?

He steps forward cautiously and reaches a hand towards her face, his fingers uncurling as if to stroke her cheek. It's an action that causes her to recoil and suck in a breath, and he pauses, not wanting to startle her, wanting her to trust him. He's heartbroken that she doesn't.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Flynn spends almost a week in the castle. They provide him with a very nice set of rooms, which he immediately notices do not have windows. The only door isn't locked, but whenever he opens it, he's stopped by a set of guards who politely ask what he wants before sending him back inside.

There's no doubt that it's a prison. But it's a nice one, so he can't complain.

They do give him whatever he wants. He doesn't remember how long it's been since he had three square meals a day, much less ones that come with different kinds of sauces and desert. They bring him books when he starts to get bored, and one of the guards is lax enough to fill him in on everything that's happening without him.

They bring him anything he wants, except the princess. It sounds ridiculous, but she's what he wants more than anything else.

Mostly he just wants to speak to her. Is she alright? The guard tells him that she is. What did she do to him? He's mostly pieced it together, but still… what the hell? And what's going to happen to him now? The guards are silent on this issue, and he suspects that no one really knows.

He'd like to apologize to her. His dull days spent in the castle have given him plenty of time to think, and the girl with the magic hair has given him plenty to think about.

He should probably admit to her that some of the things – well, most of the things – he's done to her were wrong. But he wants to tell her that he's changed – or see if she noticed – and then ask for another shot. Maybe they could make something work.

She's so pretty and sweet. How did he not notice that before? He must have noticed and just pushed it out of the way because he was too full of himself and his plans for greatness for someone like her to distract him.

She brought him back to life. She destroyed her own magical abilities rather than watch him die again. She must have healed his nose in the forest too. He has so much for which to thank her, so many ways to say he's sorry, and so many ways to kick himself.

And she was so into him. He should have jumped on that.

She was so into him that he seriously doubts that her feelings have changed. He grins to himself as he thinks about it, reclining on his sofa and staring up at the ceiling for the third hour in a row.

He grins and thinks about the way she blushes, the raw desire that lights in her eyes, the way her body would meld against his. There are so many things he can do to her when they're reunited, things that would make up for all the crap he pulled before.

She'll forgive him. He knows that much about her.

And now she's a princess too. She just gets better and better!

So he sits and thinks and reads and paces, and then he realizes that he's spent more time waiting to see her than he has in her company.

Rapunzel is not convinced the king and queen are her parents. It's just too difficult to swallow. The king and queen seem to understand this, and they offer her time and space and after the first time, the queen doesn't try to hug her again. It had been too terribly awkward. They don't push her or try to convince her, but it's clear that they disagree with her assessment.

The queen trims Rapunzel's hair herself as Rapunzel didn't do a very neat job of it. Single strands are much longer than their neighbors, the ends are singed, and once she gets time to inspect it properly, it's clear that she managed to cut it at a strange diagonal.

But the queen sets it right, evening everything out with a steady hand. She brushes Rapunzel's hair until it shines again, and doesn't sing a single note while doing so. She braids it back with gentle fingers, while the maids hover around them wishing they were allowed to help.

The moment gives Rapunzel a chance to inspect the queen in the mirror. Their noses are different. She clings to that fact, repeating it over and over in her mind.

Their noses are different.

But their frowns are the same.

They ask her about her life and she tells them with enthusiasm. No one's ever been so interested in her before. They actually seem to listen and they ask questions as if they care about her answers.

She tells them about her paintings and the queen says that she would love to see them and then suggests that they commission Rapunzel to make a new painting to hang in the king's study. The one that's there now is a grizzly battle scene, which no one finds very attractive. When they show it to her, Rapunzel agrees, but she still spends fifteen minutes examining the faces of all the tiny people.

She tells them about baking and the king takes her to the kitchens where they spend the afternoon sampling the pastries. The kitchen staff dotes on her, and the king grins with pride as she helps to roll out dough.

She tells them about Pascal and how much she's been neglecting him on her journey, and the queen allows him to sit perched on her finger, where he puffs out his chest and looks very important. The queen even speaks to him, and that makes Rapunzel's heart soar.

She tells them how she likes to play chess and the king sits down with her after dinner to share a quiet game while the queen looks on. All his moves have names, and he informs her that hers do as well. She's absolutely fascinated that somewhere someone else thought up the same thing she did. Somewhere, someone else thinks like she does.

They look horrified when she describes her tower. They hide it as poorly as the fact that they think they're her parents. She appreciates how easy they are to read, even if their disapproval of her lifestyle is completely unnerving.

They seem most interested in her mother, and ask her so many questions that she eventually asks if they can talk about something else. They apologize profusely, and quickly drop their anxious interrogation, slipping back into their usual happy interest.

"What should we do now?" the queen asks. "Rapunzel, what would you like to do?"

No one's ever really asked her that before (except Pascal) and she is at a loss for how to respond.

They mount an expedition to her tower, which relieves Rapunzel immensely. Once they arrive, Mother will be able to explain that this has all been some kind of big misunderstanding, and she'll be able to go home after thanking their highnesses for all their kindness and hospitality.

"Of course, dear," the queen says, but it's obvious that she doesn't believe it. Rapunzel decides that she doesn't mind when the king and queen lie to her because they're so obvious about it.

"I'm looking forward to speaking with your mother," the king says. He shares a dark look with the queen, who changes the subject to ask Rapunzel if she's ever ridden in a carriage before.

But Mother isn't in the tower. Even though it bites with disappointment, it makes sense. Mother wouldn't be able to enter the tower without Rapunzel's assistance anyway, and if her mother had arrived to find Rapunzel missing, she would surely have scoured the countryside looking for her. Poor Mother, her daughter's disappearance must have caused so much grief and anxiety.

The queen rubs her shoulder while the king orders a thorough search of the forest and capital.

One of the guards discovers that part of the wall at the base of the tower looks different from the rest. It's as though there used to be a doorway that has long since been bricked up. They start removing the stones, much to Rapunzel's resentment, and eventually burst through into the tower's interior to reveal a staircase that she has never seen before.

She resents that too. The guards found it so easily that she suspected they thought she was stupid for not figuring it out herself. And if there were stairs here the whole time, why did Mother insist on using her hair? It's not as though the lack of a door was what kept her inside.

The queen fawns over her murals, clearly impressed by her map of the heavens and eagerly suggesting that they borrow a telescope and go star gazing that evening.

The king's eyes dart around the little tower, clearly disturbed by its size. But she supposed that he would think anywhere that wasn't a castle was small.

"Until your mother is found, I think it would be best for you to stay with us," the queen says. "It seems very lonely out here. Is there anything you'd like to pack to bring with you?"

Rapunzel frowns and agrees, tossing her three books, some paint brushes, a quilt, and a bunt pan into a basket.

One day the king announces that Rapunzel is far too thin and needs to be fattened or she's going to blow away in a strong wind. She wrinkles her nose and quips back that maybe the real problem was that he needs more exercise and he's already bored of his newly acquired vegetarian meals. He laughs and arranges for the chef to start introducing chicken broth into her diet. The queen rolls her eyes and agrees that they both have valid points.

Eventually, the guards conclude their search of the kingdom without a single sign of Gothel.

"My guess is that she heard of the Lost Princess' return and ran for it before she could be brought to justice," the guard says.

Rapunzel runs from the room to throw herself on her bed and sob, because now her mother has abandoned her. Now her mother has all but admitted her guilt. Rapunzel thought she knew so little about the world, but now she finds that she knew even less than that. She's been deceived for so long by someone she trusted.

Her mother was cold and had high expectations, but she was Rapunzel's rock. She was a steadying force in her life that grounded her to reality as much as the rising of the sun or the stones of her tower. And now that security, that knowledge that some things are real and undeniable, has been ripped away to leave her falling and helpless.

Maybe minutes pass, maybe hours, and the queen appears to rub Rapunzel's back. It's soothing and undemanding. The queen doesn't ask her to stop, or press her to talk, or point out that she was right all along. She simply offers comfort to a crying child, even though the tears are for a woman she despises.

The closest thing she's experienced to it was when Flynn held her in their jail cell. But then again, she is still upset with him for that.

"My whole life's a lie," she whimpers.

"No. No, my darling. You've been fooled, yes. But you control your life and you can do with it what you will. All that deception, as horrible as it is, has made you who you are and taught you to be strong. Who you are - your life isn't a lie. It's as real as the coming of the seasons, and it's beautiful and tragic and absolutely wonderful."

She blinks up at the queen through her tears and decides – for the first time, really _decides_ – that out of all the people in the world, this is the person she should trust.

This person is her mother.

That evening she decides to visit Flynn. She couldn't bring herself to see him before hand. What could she say to him? He confuses her so much that her insides swirl, and thinking of him makes her feel lightheaded and angry and sad all at the same time.

But now she's made a decision. Now she's found her feet again.

She leaves her crown and Pascal with the guard at his door. They aren't pleased when she asks to speak with Flynn alone, but they allow it because she's the princess and they have to do as she says.

Flynn jumps to his feet when she enters, a delighted smile blossoming onto his face – his very handsome face. It's a gesture she can't help but return. He strides toward her, stopping just shy of gathering her into his arms, and reaches out to brush a finger against her hair, to skate his knuckles across her cheek.

"Did I ever tell you I've got a thing for brunettes?"

She laughs under her breath and shakes her head at him. "I bet you say that to all the brown haired girls. And then you tell the blondes that you've got a thing for them, too."

He scoffs. "Me? No."

"Yeah. You."

He shrugs. "I've got a thing for you, Rapunzel."

"That so?"

"Yep."

"Hmm." She unfolds the piece of paper in her hand and holds it out for him. "Here. His highness agreed this afternoon to grant you a pardon."

He reaches out slowly to take it from her and inspect it. "How much did you have to twist his arm?"

"He doesn't like you." At all. The king disliked him enough for stealing the crown and causing general mayhem around the kingdom. Once Rapunzel explained all about their adventures together, Flynn became downright despised. "He… appreciates that you played a role in bringing me home. And he understands that you're…"

"I'm what?" he smirks.

She shrugs. "You're important to me."

"Oh, really? Well, that's very interesting." She looks up to catch the smug glint in his eyes. He really is endearing in his own conceited way.

"You won't be forgiven for any crimes you commit in the future."

"Of course not. It's the straight and narrow from here on out."

She gives him a look of utter skepticism.

"Seriously!" he says. "Near death experiences can really give a man some perspective, you know."

"Yeah. I do."

The sudden shift in her tone gives him pause, and he leans back slightly to squint at her. "Huh. Something's gotten into you."

"Maybe it's _perspective_."

"… Well, this doesn't sound promising."

"You used me, Flynn."

"Uh. Yeah. About that-"

"You used me and you took advantage and you were cruel."

He winces. "Rapunzel, I'm sorry. I know, I was – " he reaches for her arms only to have her shrug him off, and he freezes, his hands hanging in midair before he pulls away to rub the back of his neck and clear his throat.

"I've treated you poorly," he says. "Abysmally, really. You didn't deserve it and I'm sorry."

She narrows her eyes, waiting for more.

"But I've changed now. You've made me a better man, and I want to make it right if you'll let me."

She considers it. She looks into his deep, brown eyes and adds the honesty in them at this moment into the pile of things she knows about Flynn, a pile that she's sorted through and examined and fretted over for the past few days.

"No," she says, shaking her head. "It's too late and I don't believe you."

His face falls slowly until he's just gaping at her in confusion. It occurs to her that he's probably never been turned down by a girl before.

"Wait." He leans forward and reaches for her again. This time she lets him take hold of her arm. "We should talk about this."

She laughs again and it comes out a bit choked, a bit forced. "There's nothing to talk about."

"Let me convince you. What can I do to prove it to you?"

"There's nothing you can do."

"I'll come up with something." He nods at this as if assuring himself as much as her.

She smiles up at him sympathetically, and she's radiant and confident and the most perfect creature he's ever seen.

So he kisses her. Because he wants her and it seems like the thing to do, because that's how he solves problems, because she's _amazing_ – amazing even though she doesn't want him, or maybe that's part of the appeal.

He draws her into his arms and breathes in the feel of her, the taste of her, her warmth and her charm and her devastating allure. He pleads for her to stay with him. He latches onto her response to his touch, the quickening of her pulse and the movement of her lips, the way she softens under his hands. He does everything he can to enchant her, to pull her in and captivate her.

He's done it before.

She doesn't pull away when the kiss ends. She stays in his arms, their lips barely brushing against each other, as she looks up at him with dark, lidded eyes.

"You see," she murmurs, "You haven't changed that much."

He blinks down at her and it takes him a moment to realize that she's absolutely right.

He lowers her slowly and takes a careful step back as a chill seeps into his heart from her absence against his chest, from her rejection and his defeat.

"You're free to go whenever you're ready," she says, making an attempt to straighten her hair.

"Hmm."

"…Are you alright?"

The corner of his mouth quirks. "I think you're the one."

She smiles at him, a truly beautiful smile. "Goodbye, Flynn."

"We'll meet again," he assures her.

"Of course."

They nod to each other in a playful kind of farewell that tugs at his heart.

On the other side of the door, the guard presents her again with her crown and her chameleon, and thus adorned, she walks away with her head held high.


End file.
